


Spellbound

by CherryJolicoeur



Series: miraculous [6]
Category: Arthur (Cartoon), Miraculous Ladybug, Original Work, Steven Universe (Cartoon), The Craft (1996)
Genre: Abusive Parents, Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Miraculous, Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Alya Césaire Bashing, Angst, Badass Marinette, Badass Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Blood Magic, Bullying, Character Bashing, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Evil Steven Universe, F/F, F/M, Gaslighting, Good Grandma Gina Dupain, Hot Mess Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Implied Connie Maheswaran/Steven Universe, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Let Steven Say Fuck, Lila Rossi Bashing, Lila Rossi Downfall, Lila Rossi Karma, Lila Rossi's Lies Are Exposed, Magic, Marinette Dupain-Cheng Needs a Hug, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug Deserves Better, Mentioned Sabine Cheng and Tom Dupain, Multi, Redemption, Sabine Cheng and Tom Dupain Bashing, Spells & Enchantments, Strong Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Underage Smoking, Witch AU, Witch Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Witchcraft, Witches, minor adrien bashing, minor class bashing, minor connverse - Freeform, some will learn and some won't????, you'll see that i'm just tagging as i go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-07 15:50:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 15
Words: 34,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26820160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CherryJolicoeur/pseuds/CherryJolicoeur
Summary: marinette is a girl who's trying to escape her dark past, and as she attends her new school she meets four other seemingly harmless-looking outcasts whom she manages to strike a friendship with.Little did marinette know however, with new friends by her side things were actually set to get much worse for her down the road.
Relationships: Connie Maheswaran/Steven Universe, It's minor though - Relationship
Series: miraculous [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1747423
Comments: 10
Kudos: 24





	1. Prologue/chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Some triggers:  
> minor physical/verbal abuse  
> psychological abuse
> 
> I'm not the best at handling topics such as these so if i mishandle these please let me know

The crisp night air was foreboding, pretty much perfect for a ritual.

In the room of a homey two-story house sat a muscular, handsome-looking older teenager. He grabbed his long overnight duffle bag that stood over next to his bedside drawer and browsed in front of his shelf as he later tossed in the essentials he’ll be requiring for tonight; candlesticks, various bags of herbs, an athame, and in his top drawer, a lighter.

After that gathering steven later left his room, turning off the light and closing the door behind him, later walking down the hall and to the stairs. As he made it to the downstairs hall he silently peered to the sitting room. The sounds resounding from the flatscreen tv idly played as he carefully stared at a woman with fluffy light pink hair dressed in nightwear from his place, her apathetic gaze remained untouched as she scrolled through her phone.

Steven had bargained that the coast was clear every night he snuck out, it’s not like his stepmother had actually managed to care, ever since she enabled custody of him she was far too immersed in her own unimportant business to actually even bother to notice him.

He missed his father and mum being together a lot. The curvy and statuesque woman with long pink ringlets that he loved with all of his heart just like his father once did had gone separate ways with both of them, now she was replaced with a woman who didn’t have the same comforting aura that rose bought with her. It had deeply hurt steven’s heart to realise that his parents were due to file a divorce. It was like all the colour in steven’s own perfect little world had drained at the announcement, his new personality making the effect of how he took it basically known. Even though greg had recently divorced pink since they weren’t on the best terms things still haven’t been the same for him ever since.

Shaking his head at his inattentive stepmum quietly, he slowly made a beeline for the front door. Steven mentally took it to mean right then and there that pink seemed to be completely preoccupied with her phone as always and opened the door to leave, grabbing his keys out of the pocket of his leather jacket.

* * *

Sabrina, connie and darcy were all gathered in the grass, located in the veranda of sabrina’s yard, individually unpacking and gathering their own equipment needed for the ritual. Sabrina’s parents were away on a dinner date and wouldn’t be back for at least a good while, so naturally, this gave her an idea to use this space to her full advantage.

Sabrina stopped busying herself with gathering her supplies as soon as the doorbell's ring went off.

"That must be her now," she assumed. She stood up from her knees and unlocked the balcony door, sliding it open and letting the cool air rush in the other side of the house. Sabrina walked out of the veranda and into the hall to answer the door, and before her stood steven.

"You made great timing, come on in.” she allowed, smirking as steven allowed himself in.

"Sorry I was late,” steven apologised briefly, before smirking as he followed sabrina's lead.

"A fellow witch is never late." Winking at him, sabrina unlocked the screen door and slid it open, a burst of an uncomfortable wave of the night's chilly air rushing in through the house.

Steven walked outside making his arrival known to the other ladies while Sabrina remained, looking around shiftily from those who will remain. It had been at least a good two seconds until she closed the door behind her.

“ _Heeeey_ , steven,” darcy waved at him, voice lowered almost seductively. Connie blushed as she looked up at him, before smiling as steven’s lips prodded against her cheek.

“Merry meet ladies.” Kneeling with them, steven set down his dufflebag and zipped it halfway, reaching a muscular hand in to reveal a bundle of sage hidden inside. “Let’s get right to it.”

At that confirmation the gang set up the patio table, busying themselves one by one. Various crystals, incense, bottles of essence were carefully positioned as neatly as possible where candlesticks were gently lit all in a manner pleasing to their god.

Afterwards the four later proceeded to chant, four pairs of lips moving simultaneously as eyes were closed and downcast with concentration.

“Now is the time. Now is the hour. Ours is magic-ours is power.”

A delicate-sounding clang of windchimes flitted around in the now gradually unpleasantly cold/windy night air but all were too engaged in intense concentration to ever consider it.

“Now is the time. Now is the hour. Ours is magic, ours is power.”

At that an eloquent pulse could be felt through the yard and through the palms of the circle. Steven was the first to look up, his voice standing out and rising above the other girls.

“Now is the time. Now is the hour. Ours is magic…”

“Ours is _ **power!**_ ”

* * *

Rain fell softly over the afternoon skies of Delmarva, through a sea of white clouds was a large white aeroplane driving through it.

With exhausted, dread-filled bluebell eyes a teenage girl looked out of the rainsoaked window as she was seated right next to her grandmother.

There was actually more to the evident dread in her almost teary eyes however-having losing the likes of your own parents as they wordlessly chart you off to stay with your grandmother thanks to the words of a liar, and then having to be the one stuck in the middle as you walk in on said grandmother chewing said parents out, can really take a lot out of you. Either way, after dealing with the aforementioned liar who was out to ruin her life every which way alternating between trying to suppress any constant urges her inner rage had produced for her to immediately lash out on her to get her to cease the whole operation marinette was basically no stranger to stress at all.

A side of her wasn’t exactly sure if she was glad to be out of her hometown or not; but a fairly large part which was another was relieved. She spent a semester of losing those around her in school thanks to lila, and when summer holiday later struck her parents immediately chose not to have anything to do to her.

She knew she had everything in the world to cherish and be thankful for, but the self pity was way too much for her, only resulting in making her even more depressed. Gina took her in to help cleanse her granddaughter of her bad memories and to help her make a fresh start. Time had since passed after the incident, and while she feels otherwise (and even after rightfully feeling heartbroken/sore about it), she wasn’t there to actually acknowledge the remorse the number of certain people who left her behind carried in all of their hearts after reflecting on their actions.

Maybe because they were only guilty-because they only miss the benefit of having her around.

Marinette could never exactly find it in her heart to hate them-because hating them would've turned her to become a bitter person. She instead chose to not exactly instil faith in those around her in light of what lila did to drive them away from her. 

It still fairly rained buckets as soon as the two ladies eventually made their way to the airport, and both were met with sheets of rain. Gina gave a brief glance over to marinette, basically sensing her granddaughter’s discomfort as soon as she caught her silently observing the rain tearing against the defenceless form of outside the airport throughout the glass windows of inside the terminal.

“Don’t worry about a thing, marinetta-it’ll be warm and dry for you as soon as we make it to the house.” Gina gave her a sad-looking smile where marinette nodded in response.

The taxi drive over to gina’s new house was quiet as the two boarded the car with dormant silence. The car strode through rain and through the winding roads, where marinette found herself staring out of the window. It was like the garden of eden. There were so many gorgeous plants to see as the car drove by, which just so happened to pique mari’s interest.

The drive later came to the close, and marinette and gina closed their umbrellas as soon as they made it to the new Spanish-style house. Marinette looked around, silently admiring the rustic elegance of the home in awe as gina gently escorted her inside.

“Leetle fairy,” gina looked over to her granddaughter lovingly, “Why don’t you unpack a bit and get some rest while I go and make you something to eat? I know you must be worn out from all that travelling though.”

“Thank you granny,” mari nodded, agreeing to gina’s offer; after that she slowly went up the wooden stairs and to the room that was later due to be her bedroom.

She stood before the wooden amber door, look deep with thought, before shaking her head. She later opened it, and inside the atmosphere and looks the room maintained was much more different than her bedroom back in paris; while it didn’t have any stairs that would lead to her bed as the bed sat on the main side of the room, it was more spacious and had a more elegant looking aura, and instead of a trapdoor that led to the balcony that resided on the other side of the room there were screen doors masked with drapes that reached to the marble floor-and to mari’s surprise, it had a fireplace in the corner. Small logs remained untouched and propped around and atop each other around a pile of ashes.

Looking around many thoughts ran through her head; she will unpack and decorate this room any way she wanted, and will love this room and the peaceful solitude it came with. She would go to her new school and try to make as many friends as she could in place of those who left her behind in favour of lila. She would enjoy this new chapter in her new life as much as she could.

The sound of the balcony door opening pulled marinette out of her thoughts, when she looked at who it might be. She gasped as her heart dropped, looking at the strange; it was a vagrant with a hideously dishevelled appearance standing right behind her balcony. Much to marinette’s evolving horror-through the crazed look in his eyes he held a snake, the serpent gently slithering over the man’s trembling hands as he held it for her to see.

“Found this out back-do you want it?” he initially proceeds to speak, trying to hand the serpent over to her.

The pallid marinette defensively pulled away from the man trying to avoid as much contact from him as possible. “No…no!” she yelled at him. “What are you doing here? Get away from me!”

Her opposing to his half-baked offer had only succeeded in riling him up in a way however, where he proceeded to bark at her in response.

“What’s the matter with you…just relax!” he shouted at her.

“Help…help! _Granny, help me!_ ” marinette shouted for assistance for the woman in particular.

Chivalry in the form of gina had arrived before mari even knew it, whereas gina grabbed a poker from somewhere in the fireplace she regarded the stranger with fury.

“Get the _fuck_ away from my granddaughter, you sick _fuck!_ ” With a defensive arm that held the poker in a firm grip, she pointed it against the bum with possible/yet almost understandable intention to kill; marinette however was too immersed in shock to acknowledge that gina had verbally chased him out of the house through the front door.

“That’s it! Beat it, you piece of _shit!_ ” she shouted from out the door, slamming it as soon as he hit the ground running.

After that confrontation gina immediately chose to make a beeline to the stairs to tend to marinette, and as she reached the girl in question who still stood around in her room with shock, she gently held her close to her chest.

“Marinetta; are you alright darling?” she cooed in her ear.

It took marinette a good few seconds to properly confirm that, where she nodded.

“I’m fine granny…” she eventually admits to her. “He…he just surprised me-that’s all.”

Marinette slowly looked down, where dread that was no matched to the one she felt on the plane before later came back to life; she found the snake the man from earlier had in his arms slither on gina’s foot, where it later chose to slowly slither and crawl up to her leg.

“G-granny…” marinette whispered. Gina looked at her granddaughter with concern before realizing the look she gave down to her leg; gina later pointing her gaze down to the snake, where she hurled the poker to the slimy creature to exterminate it for marinette’s sake.

While marientte couldn’t bear to watch, she later heard a voice only she could hear sounding In her head.

_***It’s only the end of the beginning.*** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huh, a witchcraft AU also doubling as a pseudo-halloween special
> 
> For those who are confused, D.W. is referred to as Darcy (somewhat of a "coincidental" callback to the witches from Winx)
> 
> More to come


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dawn of The First Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am so late...I originally wanted to get this out earlier today but i never got a chance to do so. I tried to rewrite this chapter at least a dozen times and i'm still not entirely pleased with the end result-so i hope this is ok?

The morning sunrise, it was a beautiful mix of every shade of orange and red there was, nearly every shade you can think. The distant view was accentuated with the sun slowly rising from its place of hiding near the far hilltops, its morning glow gleaming over the horizon. 

In that respect, in different times and contrasting morning rituals five other teenagers awoke to attend their school.

Maybe it was the heavy weight that finally lifted off her shoulders, but unlike what she did back in paris marinette surprisingly managed to wake up before the sun even had a chance to rose. The sleep managed to relax her. She hadn’t slept like this for as long as she could try to remember, so this definitely helped a lot.

Otherwise, from the very second she woke up and acknowledged that today was Monday, blood had since ran cold as marinette internally dreaded the prospect with attending this new school, a large mix of raw anguish and fear making it noticeable for her as it churned in her stomach all at once; not only she’ll be going to a completely different school with completely different people this new semester, she had _definitely_ feared that this semester just might be just the same as dupont. After her whole will had been diminished after losing the respect of those around her, it was almost clear that she‘d actually since gotten used to being pushed by her so-called friends as she walked through the halls and the insults they’d give her behind her back, and the professor and headmaster barely doing a single thing about it to cease the harassment, only bequeathing their sympathy onto your greatest adversary. Maybe it was some sort of price to pay when you’re the pariah of the whole school, especially when that as a fate even you know you didn’t deserve at all.

Before she knew it, the bedroom door opened where marinette sat up. Standing in the distance was a politely smiling gina, quietly peering at mari before speaking up.

“Wakey wakey Marinetta.”

* * *

Connie awoke aside her a few minutes after, which basically gave her enough time to do some aerobics and try out a few miles on the treadmill; trying to keep quiet for the sake of everyone sleeping in the house. She wanted her physical condition to be in tiptop shape as much as she could to try to retain her place on the swimming team.

After a short break followed by a shower, she checked that she had at least another hour to leave for school. After making herself a cup of hot green tea she later went backstairs to her room to stare out the window to watch the sun slowly set over the horizon from her windowsill. Most people didn’t like the early morning, and she can sympathise with that-but like steven she loved it, mainly because of the quiet tranquility it offered.

Having been constantly immersed on schoolwork and other extracurricular activities and afterschool practices, along with being the top of the class with super high grades didn’t make her exactly suitable to be popular at all. Basically being fit to be a gifted student along with being the perfect daughter with a lot on her plate only made for her being outcasted by her peers for being the school nerd.

Connie however chose to shake her head to try to snap herself out of it; instead of accepting defeat to any self-deprecating thoughts she instead chose to buoy her pride, along with her gorgeous dark burnt-umber curls that always rested above her shoulders, afloat.

* * *

Sabrina sighed as she twisted the knob that activated the shower, and slid the colourful shower curtain to the side, grabbing her towel from the rack as soon as she quickly proceeded to make her way out of her personal washroom.

Her parents were thankfully still asleep, her pudgy mum tightly wrapped in her father’s muscular, hairy arms. From there, the look on her sleeping father’ face had almost look like he had been crying.

What was supposed to be a romantic dinner date between his wife turned out to be the opposite as everyone in sight had feared his presence. His wife tried to make sure that he was ok-but he held his resolve together until he immediately broke. He spent the whole night begging for her not to leave him, with her assuring that she would never.

Sure her father broke a few limbs-but he was a fighter right? In this respect it wasn’t like he really wasn’t hurting anyone? Sabrina didn’t understand why everyone outcasted her family out of fear because of these circumstances. She didn’t understand why her peers ostracised her because of this.

Maybe that’s what happens when you’re the only daughter of an ex-convict.

Straight from her mum, from dad’s early childhood he spent it lonely and isolated. Her grandparents completely sheltered him from the outside world only leaving nothing but etiquette lessons on how to be the perfect heir for him. And everytime he ever attempted to even try to talk to other children at his school, they’d run away from him. Her father realised that since only his girlfriend, alter the same woman who became his wife would be the only person who loved him and stayed right by his side by all times-he figured that he might as well live with it.

Which was exactly why he chose to be a rebel soon after he turned 15. He rebelled against being the proper son of a CEO and chose to go by his own rules, retaining his own individuality. As soon as he turned 21 he immediately moved out along with girlfriend, where a few months later they eloped.

Right now history completely repeated itself. Being “the most feared man in the outskirts of Brazil” can actually be quite a feat on yourself as that title followed him the second sabrina’s parents fled Brazil and immigrated to America before she was born. And just like sabrina at school, everyone avoided him like the plague.

She didn’t care about the bullying, whether it was about the mallen streak in her hair or her father.

All she really just wanted was her daddy to be loved.

Sabrina sighed as she slipped her arms into one sleeve of her leather jacket.

* * *

In a different house there was a more subdued and almost depressing atmosphere, pretty much fitting for the subtle solitude that came with sunrise.

Darcy lied in bed, completely encircled in her sheets at least an hour later, looking at the ceiling with dread in her droopy eyes. The house was deadly silent and vacant as ever as it was only her in it.

Everytime she looked at herself in the mirror, even for a second-she knew that it really was hard to deal with being the only plus-sized student in school. Along with spending nearly her whole life being abused by her family-and as a plus having to bear scarred skin from **_~~a punishment she received from her parents taking a horribly unexpected turn~~_** from an accident.

On the subject of _“family”_ how she came to be such as in her inhabiting a house alone was a long story. It had only been at least up until she was 16 where she finally emancipated herself and left home. Her family didn’t believe that she’d actually go at it alone, and with no one to ever help her, at worst assuming that she’ll slowly starve to death and no one would care. They were **_~~sort of~~_** wrong.

This would be her rise followed by her immediate fall, her attempt at rehabilitation, and her condemnation. She was indeed heavily broken inside and out by being treated as such by those around her-on the other hand it eventually made it known that darcy had just simply stopped caring over time. She made the memories of her abuse, and the wounds she bears only remind her of who she was. She was far from a freak as those around her degraded and condemned her as-she knew and understood that she was nothing but a complete _monster_.

Darcy sat up, leaning on the wooden headboard of her bed with closed eyes. Having her other half-siblings plaguing her in school had to be bad enough.

At her very lowest point, she honestly thought that she was only born on this planet only to suffer nothing but degradation from those around her-it was her mum, her stepfather, and her halfsiblings, and the whole school-but thankfully, with the exception of sabrina, steven and connie.

They were true loyal friends.

But even as Steven pressed her to join the coven as he and sabrina were in dire need of a third-a side of her later awakened when she realised that she couldn’t exactly chose to pass a deal of vengeance.

Justice for not only having her skin permanently damaged-but justice for having half her whole life _stolen_ from her.

Through her exhausted mind she later arose from bed, pulling the sheets off her. She walked over to the vanity mirror, pinning her hair up, and after that she initially proceeded to gather her bearings afterwards. 

Pulling her long nightdress over her head darcy expectedly found herself pointing her exhausted gaze downward, where she halfheartedly proceeded to turn her gaze over the area of extensive, reddish scarring that canvassed her constantly pale olive skin-particularly across her shoulders, chest, back and arms.

* * *

He’d gladly skip school just for one day-he already constantly established to himself that Pink wouldn’t _necessarily_ have a virtual reason to really care since she always chose to glue herself to her phone so she’d barely even notice he was still in his room and his car was still in the garage. But not only he wanted to see connie, he also kept receiving a nagging urge to go and he realised that there was no hope and getting rid of it if he chose to defy it.

Steven originally didn’t hate anything or anyone before, but like darcy he hated this life now. He didn’t like Pink as his stepmother-she lacked so much of the qualities rose originally had and was just a boring, vapid woman in general. And most of all, he hated the sudden divorce of his parents and the fact that his mother estranged himself from his father, and how he couldn’t be able to see him as much anymore now that he was forced to stay with pink. The only time he ever felt anything anywhere in this realm of “good” he had was his steady relationship with connie, and him sitting before his small makeshift altar in his dark room. Otherwise there was barely anything else.

So with a frustrated groan that nearly sounded through his empty room, steven fastened the sheets and comforter away from his lower half as he proceeded to get on his get to get ready for the day.

As he looked through his walk-in closet to grab his leather jacket, the pink varsity jacket he used to wear all the time when he was only 15 going on 16 had caught his slightly widened eyes. The jacket bought back so many memories until the very moment that he gave it up and left it hanging there along with a tuxedo he’d wear for completely formal events as soon as he grew out of it.

From his dark eyes a small tear in one eye had threatened to almost fall, mostly due to nostalgia and the happiness the past had. The pink jacket was full of memories once he looked at it for a second-some were painful and bitter while most were not.

Sighing quietly, steven slowly shook his head as he later reached a hand forward to remove the article of clothing he originally intended to get off of its place on the plastic hanger. Right now he felt it completely necessary to think about the past and not the present. And right now, he just really wanted something good to happen once in a while.

* * *

Marinette and gina boarded the car, nothing but eloquent silence between them the whole time as gina drove her to school. A cool morning breeze blew through the streets from the rolled down windows of the car errantly, and many people drove/walked with haste. Over on the other side of the street young schoolchildren chased each other playfully out in circles as they waited for their bus to chart them off to their school.

The two finally made it after a fair couple of minutes on the road, and as gina finally pulled up to the side of the street where the school’s located, marinette found her eyes warily pointed out to the campus. From there many students dressed in uniform wandered around, either alone with friends as they waited for classes to begin, along with inside of the school.

‘Darling,” gina broke the silence, giving mari a look of concern as soon as the blunette turned to her. “You could wait if you want. You know…just until you have a uniform. There’s no rush in going now...”

“As much as i want to…i guess it’s now or never.” she disregarded. “I can’t stay home for the rest of my life though.”

The older woman was reluctant however, as she still had a look of unease in her eyes.

“Marinetta,” she tried to speak out to her again.

Marinette was _basically internally_ _very_ scared to death at this point; all she wanted to do right now was to just leap out of the car as fast as she could before she could start caving in and begging gina to drive her back home.

“No…no granny.” she declined once again; her delicate voice lowered considerably. “I….i really just wanted to get this over with right now.”

Gina gave her another sad look, hand moving over intending to gently stroke her granddaughter’s long hair.

“Well then, godspeed leetle fairy….i’ll be back in a few hours to pick you up.” she moved forward to prod a kiss to mari’s forehead.

As she walked through the campus with books tightly held to her chest, she looked around to try to absorb her surroundings with shifty eyes-but much to her growing dread out felt out of place this was basically the start of marinette feeling so out of place immediately. The mock “temporary” school uniform she designed (she was experimenting with Heathers-like clothing one point in time) been the only one so far to stand out in a sea of dark blazers and vests.

Marinette tried to evade the stares either she/her uniform was given in the swarming hall of students-but as soon as she looked up, she found her eyes pointed to a group of teenagers in the distance.

The clothing the four wore made marinette look sharply dressed in comparison-each wore the school uniforms, but adorned it with a more subtle “goth” vibe; with steven and sabrina, instead of the traditional blazer worn by male and female students they donned leather jackets instead, sabrina with fingerless leather gloves her father gave her for her 15th birthday where darcy sported knee-high lace-up boots. Even connie somehow tried to add a bit to the drama herself by wearing black pantyhose and obsidian earrings-which steven bought for her as a present not too long ago.

Their individual style had bought on an aura that made every student steer clear of them as if they were a serious disease.

An air of defiance rode along with steven and sabrina as he strode through the halls with his hand in connie’s, looking at the other students who chose to avoid any eye contact with each of them, he liked that just fine, and he wanted them to be _fear_ their presence just like that. Sabrina stuck her tongue out to a student who withdrew with visible disgust, where darcy’s head was buried deep in the witches almanac-she pretended to not notice any of the stares, but still felt everyone’s eyes on her regardless. Connie looked a bit sheepish as all the students glanced at her, but still tried to avoid eye contact on her behalf nonetheless.

* * *

“So, the almanac says that today will bring forth the new arrival of something?”

After that short while evading the stares of their peers the coven later gathered to the front of their lockers, whereas she removed her face from her book darcy hopefully announced to steven, connie and sabrina, who were originally preoccupied until her voice grabbed their attention.

“And so with a new wholeness, and maybe even a new balance- _earth, air, water, fire_ …with that it might be ou-“

“Darcy, _miss us with the “fifth” bullshit_.” Steven objected. “We don’t _need_ a new tag-along, or a guinea pig-that last part _only_ applies for personal adversaries only-or anyone else. We’re good as four and it’ll _stay_ that way. End of discussion.”

“ _Ooh_ , Mr Snippy?” sabrina mocked, pulling her lipstick away from her now dark lips.

“I _mean_ it! For gods’ sake, we’re not a club-we’re a _coven!_ Come on ladies, we’ve _established_ that! We can clearly bode well without another! We don’t need to hand out spells like candy for someone who barely knows a damned thing about witches.”

“Look. Chill _out,_ _chefe_.” sabrina tried to calm down her former crush-she always knew and understood that steven had a tendency to become very hotheaded like her given the situation. “We’re only talking about the idea of a new recruit-it’s not the end of the world.”

As steven proceeded to fire back darcy simply rolled her eyes at the two, choosing to cut in before a potential argument could later break out between them.

“Well in that respect we need someone to call the _corners.”_ the curvy girl tried to defuse the situation as much as she could for him-until sabrina interjected.

“Steven look-if we’re being realistic we _get_ that you always wake up on the wrong side of bed with your balls on backwards; you don’t always have to make it known with us this way so just relax.” she nearly spat out the last part. Steven chose to level the girl with a glare, preparing to direct his verbal anger towards her-until connie thankfully chose to intervene.

“Listen guys-four made a circle, but with a fifth…“

With a hand draped over his forehead steven shook his head to calm himself down, until he later chose to pull the girls’ attention to a burly female security guard, a wicked smiled on his handsome face.

“In that case, maybe she could be our fifth…” he mocked.

 _“Steven!”_ connie laughed with darcy and sabrina, who closed her locker, where he smirked.

“Come on Connie-i _love_ a woman in uniform.” He turns to her.

“And I think i’m looking right at her.”

* * *

The meeting had eventually subsided and soon followed was the first morning class-which happened to be French.

This surprisingly was a plus for marinette given that it was her native tongue, so she didn’t exactly have much to worry about. 

From the start of the class the professor greeted the halfhearted class in French as she finished writing a sentence down on the traditional whiteboard _:_ _si tu finis les devoirs, tu comprendras_ which marinette instantly realised/translated as _if you finished the homework, you’d understand._

The professor’s eyes landed on mari as soon as she looked back to the students, and chose to break the silence to address her as such.

“How rude of me.” the professor excused herself. “Class we have a transfer student joining our school as of today. I would like you to meet Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Coincidentally, she’s also born in France.

Come along darling, don’t be shy.”

Marinette tried to ignore it; but she felt the eyes of the class on her as soon as the professor introduced her. Nodding at the professor, she silently rose out of her seat-where she stood before the class.

She put on her friendliest face and gave a small wave and grin. The class greeted her back after that-and marinette felt even more out of place than before. She didn’t respond back, some students taking it to mean that she probably doesn’t understand English.

Steven however had a hand against his cheek, looking as if he could care less about her existence. Connie looked at her with wonder, a small smile on her face. Sabrina was too busy applying her makeup to actually acknowledge her.

For her, so far so good; throughout the lesson, the students didn’t stare at her as much-and the professor maintained a seemingly somewhat mostly friendly aura-and as far as marinette was concerned, she didn’t really looked/sounded as bad a professor bustier-much to her internal relief.

It still didn’t exactly handle the lack of ease in mari though.

The class had soon continued but with an almost painfully slow process with many uninterested-looking students constantly volunteering to butcher the French language where the professor chose to help correct them. To her relief, marinette thankfully hadn’t been called up yet. 

As soon as marinette focused her mind on twirling the point of her mechanical pencil on her wooden desk she didn’t acknowledge the sigh of darcy’s intuitive sense to watch her every movement in the process.

Marinette removed her dainty hand from the pencil-and made it somehow continued to twirl around in its place.

Even though she rubbed her eyes at least dozen times to try to not consider herself that she was dreaming, darcy could barely even begin to believe it-the first real bit of magic she’d seen since steven badgered her on joining this whole “witchcraft” gig and allowed her in the circle.

This was it.

_Marinette was the Fifth._

* * *

French had eventually ended, were the coven later reunited in biology.

Darcy had her eyes on marinette who chatted to the nun about the lab groups, where she later moved over to steven, sabrina and connie.

“It’s _her_.” she silently signalled to the three.

“She who?” steven said.

“New girl. Marinette Dupain-Cheng.” through the vague explanation she carefully pointed over to the girl in question. “The transfer student’s our new recruit. Someone to be the _fifth_. This is _perfect_. She’s _definitely_ the one we need-i just _know_ it.”

Asides form the small amount of fear settling in his stomach steven had almost glared at darcy-but the conversation was immediately cut short when marinette had her sights set on the first group she found; walking over to them, through their appearance she thought they’d look okay. The taller muscular boy looked wild with his distressed leather jacket and uncontrollable yet minor stubble around his cherubic face-compared to the dark-skinned Indian girl who seemed to be his girlfriend, along with the two other girls flanking them on both sides-but marinette thought that they’d be fine and cooperative to work with.

Marinette took a deep breath, and later proceeded to greet herself before the quartet.

“Hi…” she greeted them in perfect fluent English, which shocked them. “Do any of you mind if I sit with you, because I have to find a lab group for this class. I saw you guys in the halls and sat near you guys in French period earlier, so I figured that you’d be great for me. We…well we didn’t have lab back at my original school, and I need help trying to better understand what to do, so…” marinette realised that she was close to rambling-a natural yet chronic bad habit anyone could possess, and immediately stopped, her cute face flushed with visible embarrassment.

The coven just looked at her for a while-but more for at least a second where connie gladly stepped up to agree.

“Of co-“ connie tried to speak, intending to make her feel as welcome as possible-where steven had his hand on her shoulder as he held her back. He shot marinette a look that screamed of *get lost*-which made the blunette in particular shrink more and more at his ever-so unwelcoming appearance.

The response shocked marinette-and yet, she actually expected to be turned down this way. She blinked almost dejectedly and sighed.

“Well, sorry for bothering you guys. Have a nice day.” She nodded.

The coven watched as marinette left, with sabrina and connie stepping forward to try to garner her attention.

“Hey, _wait_ -“ they both yelled for her. Unfortunately, marinette didn’t get a chance to listen to either of them.

“There _she_ goes. Thanks a fucking lot, steven. Way to go, you _really_ saved the day.” darcy growled, hands up in the air. She knew form the very start that marinette would be the one for them, and the chance to get Manon to listen-and thanks to steven, they blew it.

“Yeah you _party pooper,”_ sabrina agreed.

“Steven…maybe you should’ve at least given her a chance.”

While his heart slightly wrenched at the disappointed look his lover had given him, Steven _hated_ this. Sure connie had considered him to be wise when it came to judging people-but he knew that he was going to _hate_ this new adjustment. He knew that a girl as mousy and subdued as marinette wouldn’t be fifth of anything.

The girls saw a new witch to welcome aboard in their eyes-but all steven saw was a goody-goody tagalong who’d just do nothing but stand to the side and be there to hold them back.

“I guess…that could’ve gone better.” he silently admits.

Sabrina scowled at him.

“Shut your trap Steven.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More to come


	3. what do you know of witches?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally managed to get the ball ready and rolling on this story.

The oddly pleasing solitude the football field had was somewhat calming to marinette for the most part, as she found herself standing near the sidelines after school had finally let out.

While it had been a long day for her, she had mixed feelings about today at the most; the day was rough. But it zig-zagged between not being as bad as she had originally feared the worst beforehand. But deep down she tried not to get too expectant as she felt it necessary to realise that that since this was only the beginning, it be best to hope for the best but prepare herself of the inevitable worst.

“Hey!”

Marinette realised that the rough sounding voice had been directed towards her, and immediately turned around to the source of the voice-only to feel her heart sink a small bit. In the distance, she realised that it was the group of other students dressed in black she met earlier today, starting from their stroll down the hall and their ill-considered meeting in biology.

Marinette bit her lip as she watched each of them stick together as they walked towards her. Unanimous trepidation began to fill her at once; what could they possibly want from her?

Silence reverberated between them for a while as the gang locked eyes with a subdued marinette that stood before them-and connie had been the first to speak up, breaking the silence and startling marinette by her words.

“We just really wanted to apologise for blowing you off earlier.” the Indian girl said.

“Granted, we actually didn’t expect that anybody wants anything to do with us since all the students here avoids us all the time.” darcy added.

“And steven acts the way he does to virtually _everyone_ , so it’s kinda _not_ _wise_ to take it seriously or anything…” sabrina added.

Marinette had her eyes locked to steven; who’s eyes were quickly pointed to nowhere else in particular to avoid the smaller girl looking up at him. Marinette didn’t notice, but there was almost a chastened glint in his eyes.

“…you mean _this_ Steven?” she asked, referring to him.

Connie nodded, smiling. “Yes.” The darkskinned girl looked up to her lover expecting him to introduce himself-where steven rolled his eyes and sighed, giving marinette a once over with crossed arms.

“Demayo. Steven Demayo.” he introduced passively.

“And my name is Connie Maheswaran. It’s super great knowing you.” she greeted afterwards.

“Darcy Cavendish, charmed.” darcy smiled.

“I’m Sabrina Ferreira de Assis Monteiro, pleased to meet you.” Flipping her hair, sabrina nodded at the blunette. “We already know who you are.” she raised a dainty hand to mari who tried to introduce herself to them once again.

“So i take it that you’re coming with us?” darcy said.

Marinette was perplexed by that. ”Where are we going?”

“We’re going to the mall.” steven explained vaguely. “I’m driving.”

“Yeah, join us.” sabrina said, going along with it.

Marinette began to inwardly panic at that offer; these people that she just started to know looked unencumbered by the rules, and if she ever chose to go off with them she’ll be the one having to deal with a life altering result in the end.

“I…” she tried to explain as slowly and as vaguely as she could to try to get herself out of this. “I actually left my purse back at home. And my granny said that’ll she’ll pick me up soon, so-”

“We get a five-finger discount.” Darcy backed up. “Connie’s skipping practice and her parents always work late, I live alone and sabrina told her parents that she wouldn’t be back until later.”

“You can make up some excuse on why you’ll be sticking around late. Otherwise, are you coming or not?” steven said, resolving to immediately cut to the chase with the awkward girl.

Marinette immediately felt a dread in the pit of her stomach; lying to gina about her whereabouts were one thing-but shoplifting with people she didn’t know and getting lumped in with them was definitely the last thing she wanted to do.

* * *

“So you’re a transfer student from France?”

Marinette eventually found herself in the backseat, sitting in between sabrina and darcy, the first girl asking her a question as steven drove his car somewhere downtown.

“Not to pry, but why the sudden move here?”

Marinette felt initially uncomfortable by that question, making the feeling known as it was shown in the fragile look she gave to sabrina in response. With just one look at the blunette, sabrina immediately took notice of her verbal mistake-where she proceeded to try to make up for it as much as she could manage.

“I’m so sorry about that…I shouldn’t have-“

“No…no.” Even as she was unnerved by it as if she wanted to run away when she was asked about where she came from and why she left-she had gotten used to it by now. She felt that the best way was to stick with a straight answer.

“Well…there was a lot of personal stuff going on in the background-so my granny took me to live with her.”

“So whatever happened back there must’ve sucked major ass for you?” steven said from the front. 

“…I guess you can put it that way.”

Marinette hadn’t expected the drive to come to a sudden end as steven pulled over to the side of the street. When marinette looked around from the closest windows, she was shocked-she expected for the group to head to a mall or at the very least a small store-but what steven drove them all two was definitely the farthest thing from. It was in the middle of the seediest part of town where creepy, unhinged vagrants and hookers would generally stroll-and it was even worse late at night.

“Here we are ladies.” Steven announced. He pulled the silver key from its ignition where he later slipped them into the pocket of his leather jacket and opened the door to escort connie from the passenger seat.

The walk to the location had to be at least 2 minutes long; and while her feet ached from the walk goosebumps travelled up marinette’s fair-skinned arms as she entered the shady-looking shop with the others. The lighting inside was practically almost dim, with lit candlesticks supplying more light to help. The shopkeeper made strange hand gestures over a bowl of herbs, too immersed her task to notice the gang walk in through the door.

“You…you told me that we were going to a mall.”

Steven looked at her.

“I lied.” he admits, shrugging as he did-almost as if it wasn’t a problem.

After that, steven made his way to browse with connie, who originally shot him an unreadable look at his monosyllabic, straight-to-the-point sentence beforehand. Opening her designer bag, sabrina unanimously directed herself to the other side of the shop to look around herself, where darcy chose to stick around with marinette.

Marinette chose to follow darcy as she began to explore the shop. It had an unreadably eerie aura that haunted her-and yet, she didn’t know or understand why everyone was really taking how they felt about shopping here seriosuly.

“Hey. Marinette.”

The blunette’s eyes were pointed to a shifty eyed darcy before her. The chubby girl’s eyes glanced over to the currently occupied shopkeeper, before quickly pointing them to marinette as a leathery red book was handed over to her.

“Hurry up, try to fit this in there.” she pointed the book over to marinette’s personally handcrafted briefcase in question, “Put it in before she catches us.”

Marinette was _astonished_ -she thought that the whole “five-finger discount” sentence darcy had quickly established earlier at school was only for show; she definitely didn’t think that they were really going to steal anything.

However her morality still stood strong, where it pushed marinette to object to it.

“No.” she initially refused, setting the book down to the nearest table masked with silk red cloth. She was surprised to say the least that darcy-who looked innocent despite her vampy appearance-actually flashed a disgusted scowl to her.

It sent shivers down mari’s spine when the scowl reminded her of the ones her former classmates gave her.

“You don’t get it don’t you?” darcy had her hands on a much smaller item as she carefully tucked it away in her smaller pleather backpack, “Everything in nature _steals_. You’ll notice that in nature, _big_ animals steal from _little_ ones.”

Marinette’s stormy expression had later evaporated considerably, as it had been replaced with a look of uneasiness. As she slowly shook her head at the pudgy girl, she watched her as darcy tentatively eyed more items on display before her to potentially steal for herself.

“But…this is much different though. Those animals thieve from others of their kind to survive. And I already have a diary-i design things from the ground up myself without stealing them.”

“What I asked you to _steal_ was different.” darcy piped up. “That’s just no ordinary cutesy diary. You put spells and power thoughts in there. No one else other than you…and maybe _us_ can look into that.”

Marinette’s eyebrows raised in confusion at her vague explanation of the “diary”, and later began to turn her attention back to the red book she refused to pilfer earlier; on the front of the cover was an emblem of a golden triangle.

Marinette turned back with a sad look on her face watching darcy strode back near her.

“Are you guys _sure_ you’re really into this sort of stuff?”

Even when he stood in the distance with connie, steven gave the blunette an almost annoyed look-that screamed of “obviously, that’s why we’re here”-where darcy gave her an evasive looking grin.

“Sort of?” she shrugged.

Marinette sighed, walking back over to the table as she proceeded to grab the book that piqued her interest earlier. Her eyes were locked in the contents the book had as she flipped entry through entry-many detailed, step-by-step spells, alternating between basic to advanced had filled every page.

After a while of reading, marinette slowly closed the book, where she later found her attention drawn to the other side of the shop. There hung a bland-coloured curtain, with an emblem of eyes on it. Marinette felt herself strangely drawn to it-and unexpectedly found herself inching near it to find out what mystery it hit behind it with every step.

She walked forwards more and more, as if she was a bobby pin drawn to a magnet. Her dainty hand slowly reached for the curtain with intent to draw it back-but stopped her action short when shock came back to life once again as the shopkeeper stopped her from doing so with a firm grip.

“That isn’t an area for you to be interested in looking in.” the shopkeeper addressed, her soft, thick accent-clad tone stern and forbidding.

Marinette looked at her with widened eyes; and immediately shook her head to wake up. The shopkeeper softly removed her hand from her wrists, where mari politely cupped her hands.

“I’m…I’m so sorry about that, _madam_ …forgive me.” she replied quietly.

The shopkeeper immediately acknowledged the raw amount of anxiety conspicuously radiating in waves-and resolved to soften her expression.

“Will you be purchasing that?” she pointed over to the spellbook marinette held in her hands. Marinette realised that she was talking about the item in particular.

“I….i haven’t really decided yet.” she explained briefly.

Nodding approvingly, the woman escorted her over to the counter. “If you do, i think it’s safe to say that you’re not like your other friends.” The woman pointed to the others as they all individually wandered through the shop. Marinette just simply looked over to the side, not exactly sure how to comprehend what she meant by that.

“Do you know how to use candles?” she asked to her. The warm look in her eyes had a playful look which marinette gradually took notice of.

“Yes…you…light the wick?” she nodded in response.

The woman held several unlit sticks in the palm of her hand thoughtfully. “More than that.” she replied. “Red represents love-and for black…actually…”

She had her hands on a small paperback that sat untouched on a shelf that was constructed behind her, and passed it along to marinette, who took it in her hands.

“Why don’t you read this?” she recommended to her. “Surely it’ll explain everything you need to know for you.”

It had fairly been a long day enough for her-and she really wanted to be done with it. Marinette gave one more glance to the tome-a nonchalant one, and nodded at the woman.

“I…I guess I’ll take it?” marinette agreed, accepting the book as hers.

The woman smiled. “That’ll be twenty dollars then.” she said.

Marinette was about to go forward with the transaction, but immediately stopped short when realisation quickly struck-she wasn’t from here.

“O-oh. Actually-I just moved here from france, so i’m not really-“ she tried to explain, until a voice sounded by her sighed.

“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.”

Marinette and the shopkeeper were both surprised to save the least; marinette surprised that darcy was actually going back on her word on shoplifting by paying for something, and the shopkeeper surprised that darcy didn’t manage to steal from her this time. _**~~Too bad she was actually sorta wrong on that.~~**_

Darcy retracted a couple of bills from her wallet and slid them on the counter. The woman proceeded to do away with them in the cash register where she later placed the two books away in a brown plastic bag.

Darcy later walked back to reunite with the others for a while, where mari and the shopkeeper were both left to be alone. Marinette retrieved the bag from the counter and looked back at her.

“I…I actually never really read books about these. I…I don’t follow it.” she admits to her-but the shopkeeper was there to back her up.

“Maybe you’re just a natural witch?” That your powers…come from _within_.”

Marinette looked away; she wasn’t particularly sure how to feel about that comment as it floored her. Thinking into it-she felt that it actually made some sort of sense for her. 

“Let’s move it.” Steven called out to her, holding the door open for connie as she walked it with the others following behind her.

Marinette turned to the older boy and immediately nodded, as she quickly followed after them. The shopkeeper watched as the teens cleared out one by one, later leaving it vacant as usual.

* * *

It was clearly that time had passed by fast the second the gang made their way out of the shop, and it was dark out; the sun was due to set any time now, and marinette immediately realised that she really need to get home as soon as everyone started the long walk back to steven’s car. Marinette looked ahead as everyone walked a head of her; steven’s arm was draped around connie’s dainty shoulders as he escorted her, and darcy scrolled through her phone. The smell of cigarettes filled and fairly burned marinette’s nostrils with it’s unpleasant prescence as a thick wisp of smoke withdrew from sabrina’s dark lips.

The sun had set about not too long ago, only making way for the evening moon to cast a silvery white glow on to the paved road. Voices of the night goers and the beeping of cars filled the air, along with the contrasting illuminance of headlights and streetlights.

“You guys,it’s been fun but i really need to head home right now or else my granny would worry.” marinette tried to explain.

“We know. Just keep looking straight ahead, and just keep walking.” darcy instructed.

The chaos and confusion the sidewalks had gave marinette a viscerally unpleasant feeling; an overwhelming wave of stress radiating her way as she found a dishelleved, visibly exhausted mother holding her newborn and trying to accost many others walking near her for help.

Looking back at her, marinette began to commiserate with the woman for a while-but as she sighed, she realised that the gang were nowhere in sight.

“G…guys?” she called out. No answer.

Marinette turned around, eyes jumping all over the place as she desperately tried to search for them through the many people walking around her-only to find that they were barely there.

“Hey!” mari’s voice was raised, hoping for them to hear her, “ _Guys!_ Where _are_ you?!”

The search was almost futile-there was barely anytime to properly focus as the noise in the environment she was in respectively gotten louder.

Marinette opened her eyes, and found herself in front of the person she least expected to ever see again; the beggar with the snake.

Strangely pleased with her prescence, like a curious toddler he haphazardly proceeded to totter right after her, the snake in his arms.

“Hey-I know you…” he spoke up, much to mari’s horror. She knew and understood very well that she had to get away.

“I got a snake for you-“ he offered, balancing the aforementioned serpent in his arms. Marinette immediately ran away form him, sweating bullets as soon as she felt him catching up to her.

“I have to…have to talk to you…i had a dream about you-“

Marinette evaded his words, her breathing picking up with every step as the man kept pursuing her through the crowd. But the more she ran, his voice was raised.

“There, in my dream…you were dead….YOU _WERE DEAD!_ ” he screeched out that last part.

Through the desperate escape was almost so surrounded by many indescribable people, pretty much in a way she can almost scarcely move; but she fearfully broke from the clearing as she ran out and away from them.

She ran into traffic, narrowly missing a car that nearly drove against her where more had stopped to her feet as she tried to escape to the other side-but the vagrant however still followed her like a persistent lost puppy.

“LISTEN TO _ME!!!”_

The shrieks of the tires of a speeding car sounded throughout the street-and on a split second the car unexpectedly plowed into the man. With a sickening thud the man fell back onto the wet road, body lifeless and out for everyone to see.

Five pairs of eyes had immediately met-sheer electricity.

Police officers were due to descend on the scene, where sheer pandemonium erupted from there. Marinette’s constantly trembling hands were pressed against her lips as the quivering girl stared with wide eyes.

“Marinette!” Connie shouted from the passenger seat.

The blunette tearfully yet wildly turned over to the gang, that were a distance away from her as they were all seated in steven’s car; Sabrina opened the door for her where mari immediately sped inside and slammed the door behind her. 

“Guys…” marinette whispered quietly, wiping away her tears.

“Come on steven, let’s get the hell out of here.” brina requested.

* * *

“Oh my _GOD!!!!”_

Steven sped the streets after that quick escape, where Sabrina immediately broke the silence that threatened to loom in the car with her cheering. Darcy had been the most vocal to share her feelings-but it was mainly unclear with how steven and connie felt about the situation.

“We _did_ it!” the plus-sized girl next to her yelled. Darcy held her hands as the two began to bask into the glory of what they just did. “We _actually_ did it! That car _hit_ him and we _made_ that shit happen!”

“Maybe…maybe not.” Steven said almost silently as his eyes were focused on speeding through the now vacant road.

“No Steven- _definitely_.” Sabrina disregarded. “Like I literally thought it to myself: oh, it’s gonna _hit him!”_

“Me too!” darcy agreed.

“Well, I thought it too…” the now reserved connie said. “But it was weird…”

“And so did i…but that doesn’t-“Steven tried to say-before sabrina interrupted him.

“Marinette, did you think it too?” she asked.

“I….” the mousy blunette tried to speak. “Yes.”

“Well….that _was_ amazing how we did it all together.” The previously quiet connie’s face glowed.

“He was coming after her-so he fucking deserved it.” Steven shrugged.

“That’s it! Marinette’s officially the fifth-we can make things happen! This is it-this is real!”

Steven didn’t want to notice it, but her felt the grin creep on his face-where he later accepted defeat and began to grin.

“Shit…you guys are gonna get _me_ going.” He chuckled, his smile glowing with actual glee.

Marinette meanwhile just sat in her seat; she knew how wrong it was to grin at another’s misfortune- but the amount of odd satisfaction she felt during the whole situation had been there to cancel it out for her.

“This…is strange.” she spoke up where the others could hear her.

Steven could see the lithe blunette constantly teetering between emotions, as she was at crossroads over how to feel at this point.

“Hey-listen. He was after you. He was going to hurt you. It’s not our fault-I mean…” he assured to her, shrugging again.

“Hey…in this respect-maybe he’ll listen now.” Darcy implied.

The identity of who darcy talked about had piqued mari’s interest. “Who?”

“Manon.”

Marinette’s mind would’ve originally flashed back to a little girl she babysat in her time back in paris, but she immediately took notice of how the atmosphere immediately went quiet at the mention of this thing’s name. She looked around at the others and acknowledged by the placid/knowing look that it must’ve been a religious-like figure.

Sabrina placed a cigarette to her lips and lit it up with a small pink lighter that was stashed somewhere in her handbag, carefully watching as the tip enveloped itself into the flame.

“Is…that like God?” marinette dared to ask. “In your…witch thing?”

Sabrina took a drag from her cigarette before turning to the blunette. “No, no. Man invented God. This is much more older than that.”

“So…you guys…worship the devil?”

Silence filled the car, leasing marinette to immediately regret her sudden choice of words. She sunk in her seat in embarrassment, allowing the humiliation of the moment to swallow her-but immediately became surprised the second the entire car unexpectedly exploded with loud laughter.

“It’s _like_ the god and devil,” connie clarified for her, after a while of laughing with the others. “It’s everything.”

“Everything?” mari tried to ask.

“Everything. Nature.” Steven thought that the blunette already understood. “If god and the devil were duking it out over football then manon would be the field-or the stadium.”

This information only managed to be way too large and confusing for marinette to fully consume and wrap her brain around.

“Did things like tonight ever happen to you a lot, marinette?” darcy asked, receiving a cigarette and a lighter from sabrina as she did.

Marinette looked openly dumbstruck at the prospect of this question-if not, almost touched by it-like as if darcy’s tone made it sound like it was a skill that she should be proud of having.

“Oh…no. No. Not like that.” She finally answered for her for the sake of not wanting to keep the others in suspense this way. 

“Where did you learn it?” connie inquired. “Everything we learn is usually from books.”

“Oh-i don’t know. I’m not really sure where.”

“A natural witch…” darcy trailed off.

The half-smile steven had on his face not to long ago had dropped considerably-with each passing sentence the girls exchanged throughout the whole conversation. Jealousy and irritation mounted and rose into the pit of the older teenager’s stomach as he drove with squinted eyes.

 ** _*This had to be the biggest heap of bullshit I’ve ever dealt with,*_** he thought as he drove. This new transfer student was only a novice and steven took it to mean that since she was, she barely even knew that a single Book of Shadows was. 

“Sabrina-bum one of those to me will you?” steven demanded to the latina tersely. Sabrina rolled her eyes as her dainty hand went to dug into her purse handing another cigarette coinciding with her lighter over to steven.

“Here you go, your majesty.” she said handing them over to him. After retrieving them, with one hand necessary steven pulled the cigarette into his mouth, handing the lighter over to connie and slightly leaning to her intending for the girl to light it up for him.

“Hey.” Steven called out to marinette in particular, where the blunette looked up. Steven realised that he must’ve garnered her attention by his firm sounding voice.

Steven’s eyes slowly darted to mari, who looked a bit shy as soon as she noticed the glint he held in his eyes.

“Ever heard of _invoking the spirit?”_ He asked her.

Marinette’s face was blank by that question; the question in particular sounded heavy-enough to make her think of that practice think of daemons.

“No.” she admits quietly.

Steven decided to press the question a bit further. “It’s when you call then.”

“Call who?” Marinette asked.

“ _Man-on_.” Steven internally facepalmed-he really couldn’t believe who emptyheaded and pathetic this mousy _new transfer student_ was-and it _showed_. “It’s like…you _take_ _it_ into you-it’s like it _fills_ you.”

With closed eyes darcy’s chin rose with pure rapture, sabrina and connie nodded with utter bliss, and steven’s dark eyes glimmered into the night with glee. Marinette clearly had to be the only odd one out as she felt utterly uncomfortable at where steven was going with this.

“It just…takes everything that ever went wrong your whole life-“ steven continued, voice subdued with every word in his explanation, “and they make it all better for you again.”

Mounting horror filled the blunette as she looked at steven’s face twisting to a sadistic, ear to ear grin.

“But…” marinette chose to speak up against him. “Nothing makes everything all better again.”

Steven’s lips just simply twisted to a spiteful, derision-filled curl. “Maybe…maybe not for you.” he continued to collectively play around with her fear some more, badgering her.

“Steven…” connie tried to accost him as soon as she noticed the dread on mari’s face, laying a hand on his shoulder.

At that five-word sentence, that was all mari needed to hear.

“I’d really like to get home now.” Her requested was almost frantic and out of left field-respectfully so given how she felt after steven’s words.

“Relax, I was just joking with you. Don’t take it seriously.” steven tried to calm her down in that way-but he didn’t receive and answer from the blunette at all; just silent mounting dread.

Steven sighed, shaking his head as he turned the car around.

“Fine. What’s your address?”

* * *

Marinette had immediately jumped out of the car the second steven finally pulled up to the side of the street, and to her granny’s house.

“Marinette, why are you leaving so soon?” darcy asked her from the open window.

“Look. You guys are just _really_ freaking me out-and I can’t be the one who has to deal with that. Okay?” marinette yelled as she stopped halfway to the front of the house, as if her words would explain everything for them. She immediately fled to the veranda, where steven shrugged and chose to drive off.

“Oh-ho. New kid’s scared of us now.” Steven mocked; his deep voice clearly acidic for the blunette. From right then and there he had knew it. He knew and understood very well that the ** _mousy little bitch_** could barely handle being in their circle-even to the point that he was certain she was afraid of her own _shadow_.

Darcy just simply slumped in her seat, the girl a storm of emotions right now as she could barely even begin to comprehend what just happened-her only hope for a better life and a better future through magic immediately wanted out of their little coven.

Connie turned to steven, leaving darcy and sabrina to scowl at him.

“Steven, we really needed her…” she said.

“Like a hole in the head, i’m sure.”

“Steven, just what the hell is your problem with her anyway?” sabrina said.

“That girl’s just going to hold us back if we ever let her in. I’m only just doing you a favour.” he explained as he drove into town

Shaking her head, connie chose to be in touch with her own intuition as she’d always been.

“Don’t worry guys,” she spoke to darcy and sabrina.

“She’ll be back in before we know it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Steven REALLY doesn't like marinette. 
> 
> More to come


	4. Marinette Interrupted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A really short chapter.
> 
> Also even though she's barely a prominent character/antagonist in this story the whole "Lila" bashing part starts here for those who are anticipating it. To the people in question sorry to keep you waiting so long.

Marinette immediately opened the door with the key gina gave her as soon as steven drove off with the others. She walked inside and into the dark foyer, where gina immediately shot out of her seat on the couch as she ran over to her granddaughter.

“Marinetta, where have you been?” she immediately chose to ask, inching closer to the girl in concern. “Thank gods you made it home when you did or I would’ve lost my mind.”

“I’m so sorry, granny, really,” mari was quick to apologise. “I… I know I have no excuse, but I was studying at the library with some friends I just made today and…i lost track of time.”

Gina nodded with understanding-her hands later reaching to her shoulders. “It’s alright, leetle fairy…” she said. “But when you stay out-at least promise to me that you check in with me.”

Mari unanimously nodded at the deal gently, and noiselessly escorted herself right up to her room without a second thought.

However, an overwhelming storm of thoughts constantly ran through her head as she walked upstairs.

Being a part of a coven was really the farthest thing she wanted to be. After all she went through, she just really wanted to be normal and that was her main desire-even though back in paris it had been so insufferably difficult for her, loosing her friends and parents to a bully that constantly torments her every chance her and her posse would get, and even going so far as to resolve to take her own life one point in time when the stress of the situation immediately overcame and got the best of her.

Was this really the fate that was going to become of her tumultuous life now?

* * *

The strong smell of cigarette ashes filled the normally numb air of steven’s eerily silent room as the owner of the room in question dragged on a cigarette, his face a storm of emotions under his thick brows: nervousness and anger at the situation he went through with the others earlier. Light had since left his eyes long ago as his look was hard and cold, pointed up to the ceiling as he immersed himself in his thoughts.

Steven didn’t want to believe it, not for a _second_ -what if the other girls were right? What if marinette was really the fifth? This would’ve left steven to realise that he made a grave mistake in driving her away the way he did.

A long puff of smoke emerging from steven’s lips and he pulled the cigarette away from his mouth, eyebrows furrowed at the thought. Who even cares about that **_pathetic goody-goody_** anyway? After all-he could see that she had no interest but to just belong somewhere either way. She was _never_ qualified to devote herself to their makeshift coven either way.

Steven slightly sat up to take another drag, leaning back on his headboard.

* * *

The next morning eventually came, morning rituals before school came and went, where marinette found herself early for class once again.

A sparkly open notebook along with a larger textbook both sat atop her desk as she immediately resolved to get a jump on her homework to pass the time.

Steven, connie, sabrina and darcy suddenly arrived before her desk which startled the blunette, she was too immersed in studying to ever even notice them.

“Care to explain why everyone here’s talking mad shit about you?” steven’s arms were crossed levelling the small girl with an unreadable stare that expectedly didn’t put marinette in ease.

Marinette’s passive look dropped as she seemed to not know how to comprehend steven’s sentence. The silence wasn’t the only thing she noticed as she carefully examined the sad looks on darcy and connie’s face, and the looks steven and sabrina shared-serious, grave-looking ones, that intimidated marinette a little.

“What do you mean?” she asked him.

“Marinette…” darcy said silently to her.

“Come one folks-let’s take this outside.” sabrina recommends.

The group later met out back. A feeling of dread and confusion filled marinette as she walked with the others as they followed steven.

“What’s going on?” It was clear that the blunette wanted answers, and she wanted them now.

“There’s this…concerning rumour….word got out that you’ve been…sleeping around.” Darcy explained carefully.

A stab of adrenaline was taken to marinette’s heart as her face immediately paled at that, where the feeling of dread magnified and spread to all over her body. Sweating bullets, she directly tried to speak up, trying to address this sudden accusation either way.

“I don’t know where this is coming from?” she spat out immediately.

Steven’s eyes simply shined ominously, as he proceeded to be the one to press the details of the damaging rumour further.

“There’s this student who claimed that she knows you back in France….because she went around the whole school earlier this morning claiming that you stole her boyfriend away from her.”

Her heart wrenched with utter shock-not by what the new student had told everyone, but the fact that she knew her identity. She felt like she was trapped into a _living_ nightmare.

She later found her eyes pointed over to a duet of girls standing near the school, and immediately lost feeling in her body as she was met with flashbacks the second she glanced over to them; one was a girl of primarily Italian descent and with sausage-like hair, where another was a bespectacled darker-skinned girl with ombre hair, along with a bunch of other girls-no one could see the enraged look on darcy’s cherubic face and she looked to a girl with a high ponytail flanking a fairly short one with auburn hair and a bow headband to accessorize.

The look the Italian girl branded into mari’s soul had screamed of pure _evil_ in the form of a shit-eating smirk and marinette immediately felt like throwing up the second she even bared to look at it.

“I think that’s the prime suspect ogling you with four-eyes over there.” Steven reminded.

* * *

Clutching onto the blazer of her recently retrieved uniform, all the blood rushed up to mari’s head, in a way that made her feel feverish by the moment. She immediately retreated from the coven alone and headed straight to where no one would see her-which was a secluded area inside the school.

She kept walking and walking down further to try to be alone, until-

“Miss me?” a voice said.

Marinette stiffened by the voice in particular and turned around. There stood lila along with the rest of her little posse. She could see that alya wasn’t around at the moment.

“What do you want from me?” the blunette asked her as she stood before her, eyes guarded as she eyes the group-particularly a smug lila.

“Seeing as I was told that it was you who started that rumour about me, I guess I’m not really surprised.”

Lila’s smirk grew wider with that, shrugging as soon as marinette vocally put two and two together in front of her. “So you think you’ve got me all figured out on that like before?” she said. “Yeah, I did it-and I have to admit-it’s really fun riling you up the way I always do.”

“Any particular reason _why?_ ’

“That didn’t explain much for you?” Lila said. She stepped closer to the blunette in a menacing distance-particularly with them both nose to nose. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. It was _fun_. Making you suffer is _pleasing_ for me. Just keep in mind that even though we’re in a much different school in a much more different state-whatever you try to say against me, I’ll _gladly_ deny. Thanks to me-you’re _slowly_ becoming the biggest shame of this school. They won’t believe you, especially those _freaks_ you talked to earlier.”

Marinette immediately leapt out of her shocked state-and seethed at the brunette with rage.

“Why can’t you just leave me alone already lila?” she spat. “You already got what you’ve wanted from me-so just what _more_ could you possibly want _now?_ What will it _ever_ _take_ for you to get off my back for once?”

The last sentence managed to fully pique lila’s interest where she innocently batted her eyelashes at the blunette before her.

“Oh honey, that’s not compared to how much i’ll how to officially make your life hell for you.” Her ever so menacing smirk interlocked to marinette’s cerulean eyes, up to a point. “What I did to you back in paris was only just the _beginning_. Nothing will ever prepare for what I’m about to do with you as soon as I get settled in-so get ready for it.”

The blunette’s blood boiled at the smug looks lila and the others collectively gave her. Lila took it to mean that her adversary had not a single to say against that, leaving the sausage-haired girl considering to herself that her work here was done and over with.

Lila simply motioned for her group of sycophants to leave, where the group later disappeared at the hall. She pushed past marinette, who’s eyes were filled with tears as they unexpectedly proceeded to accumulate at the corners.

Marinette stared into space as lila and her posse left her behind, leaning to the metal lockers as her vision blurred before her considerably.

Again.

It’s happening **_again_.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Lila's back to be a radioactive hemorrhoid for marinette again. It kinda gets worse for the others (as in connie, sabrina and D.W./Darcy) next chapter
> 
> more to come


	5. breathe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 5, come alive.  
> AKA another short chapter.  
> Content warning for brief fatshaming/bullying. You've been warned.

Silence and concentration filled connie’s ears and mind-and a sea of rippling, sparkling cobalt patiently waited for connie as the Indian girl steadily stood atop the high diving board.

_“Shark!”_

The voice that sounded through the gym was an annoying sound belong to that of a screechy teenaged girl, so high-pitched and condensing as it could be in all its glory that it could almost shatter glass in one standing if she ever screamed. 

Disregarding the shout, rolling her eyes at the now cruel laughter of the girls connie immediately jumped off the board, her body later driving itself right into the water.

Even as she leapt in perfectly-the laughter of half the diving team-predominately the girls from earlier could still be heard. For a while she unanimously submerged herself into the cerulean darkness. The water was usually room temperature-cold, enough to make her teeth ache as usual. The locks of her curly hair flowed gracefully behind her as she silently idled in her place-but she immediately knew and understood that she couldn’t stick around forever.

Connie immediately rose from the water, flipping her hair away from her face as her bangs clung to her forehead from the water.

“ _Superb!”_ Sofia mocked, clapping her hands as savannah and a few other cronies of theirs joined her. “How absolutely _superb_ , Maheswaran.”

“Yeah, like how can we _ever_ even compete?” savannah giggled.

Simmering, connie swam up to the surface as she silently evaded the venomous whispers and smug stares of her peers with boiling blood all the way. Wrapping a white towel around her, a trail of wet footsteps followed her as she immediately chose to make a b-line for the girls’ lockers.

She had an intuition to stay calm and to just try to “stand tall” on her own, and not to ever allow anyone that stands in her way to ever think otherwise for her. She always trusted that instinct, having known and understood to herself not to let others like her tormentors respectively hurt her every random chance they always get.

Trying to calm herself down as much as she can, connie sighed as she later arrived at the lockers. Walking over to the mirror she unwrapped her towel, using it to wipe through her damp curls-ignoring the sight of sofia and savannah along with their posse over on the other side, the sisters simultaneously brushing their hair.

Sofia’s icy blue eyes were later pointed down to her hairbrush as she acknowledged a patch of hair through the bristles.

“Ew…it looks like I got _pubic hair_ on my brush…” she gestured over to savannah who also regarded the sight with disgust. The sisters later turned their eyes over to connie who almost half-heartedly retrieved her uniform from her open locker.

“Oh wait..of course. I guess it’s not d.w.’s today…what a surprise. It’s just only _maheswaran’s_.” sofia smirked evilly.

“Eww….i think it’s caught into my brush too sissy?” savannah piped up, holding her brush for proof-and by coincidence, strangely enough, a lock her her own hair was caught into her own brush as well.

The muscles in connie’s neck considerably tightened at those comments, the Indian girl’s fists clenched in a way where the palms of her hands threatened to draw blood if she’d pushed the limit any further. Her teeth had clenched from behind her closed mouth as she stared down at her locker.

An unexpected side of connie had immediately thought it’s back to life as it swarmed her wild, uncharacteristically **_venomous_** thoughts-it initially badgered her with a major urge to just drop what she’s doing immediately to gang up on sofia and _pull her hair out_ , or to get steven to do that for her-since she’d know that he’ll gladly go above and beyond the limits for his girl. But she knew very well that she absolutely _couldn’t_. That level of violence even out of vengeance was absolutely _beneath_ her and would _definitely_ put a major stain on her good-girl reputation.

Connie really didn’t want to be a vindictive person at all. That was the farthest thing she wanted to be-but a side of her constantly made it seem otherwise.

She slowly turned over to the sofia, unexpectedly making her anger known as she slammed her locker shut-unnerving her bully a little. She walked to at least a respectful distance towards sofia, where savannah along with the rest of their cronies defensively backed her up.

“Why are you _doing_ this to me, sofia?” frustration was laced in her voice as soon as she looked at her, straight in the eye.

Sofia’s glossy pink wicked smirk later transformed to a cold, straight-to the-point one.

“It’s just because I just don’t like people who are friends with _fat, disgusting cows_.” she confirmed for her-her icy gaze piercing into connie’s all the way. Connie immediately realised that she must;ve been referring to darcy-which made her anger magnify into pure **_rage_**. “Your stupid boyfriend and that Sabrina _bitch_ qualify. That _pathetic_ transfer student does too. Since you’re the school nerd-I suggest _you_ do the math.”

Connie just seethed at sofia’s response, too immersed her anger to even acknowledge the idle giggling of her posse as they respectively pushed past her.

The darkskinned girl stood there for a while. She felt like breaking down and _crying_ -

Up until the convenient moment where she realised that this really _wasn’t_ something a girl like her should do.

Right now was time for her to do something about this-and she knew _just_ where to turn.

* * *

The thick pitter-patter of rain resounded outside of the house were raindrops dominated the glass windows.

The school day had eventually came to a close, and even as she was upstairs in the solitude of her new room marinette still fought inside herself as her mind kept going back and forth as she constantly found herself remembering the sudden encounter she had with lila earlier.

A storm of self-loathing and fear swallowed her up as she Lila was back to make her life hell all over again and she thought she finally had a break to get away from the stress of losing everything to her after gina took under her care.

She knew and understood at that moment that everything was fine. The world was fine. Everyone in it was fine. Her granny was fine. That _scheming bitch_ lila was fine. Those _traitors_ were all fine. And as far as she knew, the last time she ever had any face-to-face contact with them she knew that the circle was **_~~not exactly~~_** fine too-even though things have been more frigid than usual between them lately. Everyone in her life was fine-excluding _herself_. _She_ was the main problem. She had since established to herself about how _pathetic_ and _useless_ she was-and that the world would be a much better place if she wasn’t around. And she didn’t exactly blame everyone for leaving her behind and for Steven to treat her the way she did.

At that moment a voice talked itself back to life when she noticed that; **_*you’ve already tried that. You’ve already tried offing yourself. But even then, you couldn’t even do that right.*_**

Hugging her knees as she continued ignoring the loud howling of the storm that sounded through the windows marinette just chose to envelope herself into the solitude of her dark, gloomy room.

* * *

With a silent sigh, steven halfheartedly pulled the darkcoloured umbrella over his head to try to protect himself from the wild storm as soon as he stepped out of the front of his car that was neatly parked in the driveway.

Grabbing his house key he walked to the front door of pink’s house, where he opened the door. Stepping inside steven closed the door behind him, throwing the umbrella inside the empty basket that stood aside from the door, leaving it inside to soak.

Without warning steven casually immersed himself in his thoughts as soon as he made his way inside. He always considered himself to deserve more better than the constantly changing life he was forced to live now. He prayed to himself that maybe one day the magic will work for him. Then, everything he’s going through now wouldn’t matter anymore.

As steven walked inside the house, he later peered a bit inside the now dimly-lit sitting room, only to be met with a surprising sight-pink wasn’t on her phone as always but it was just her getting cosy with an unidentified man who definitely didn’t look anywhere like his father with his arm around her shoulders. Two skinny champagne flutes sat atop the sleek coffee table as the flatscreen tv played silently in the background. The man however chose to break the silence as he suddenly asked pink about steven’s sudden presence where pink disregarded the question nonchalantly, saying “oh that was just my stepson”. She left it at that, where she proceeded to canoodle with the man where airy giggles filled the room afterwards.

Shaking his head at what he heard and saw before him steven pulled himself back in the hall, wiping any remaining water from the storm away from his face as he escorted himself to his room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More to co-*unexpected record scratch*  
> A word of warning to those who are interested in this story that i won't be able to publish any forthcoming chapters soon, I'll be going away on a trip come thursday which is the reason why i haven't been publishing much anywhere lately, so i won't be around at the moment to work on any chapters for a while.


	6. open to listen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm back and I'm bad! (at everything)
> 
> i actually arrived home Sunday night, but Monday was my papa's birthday, i was due to get my driver's licence and i was focused on other new stories so i couldn't exactly work on anything since then. With life practically in the way for me more than expected (and working on my d.w. x steven AU), i'm pretty sure its safe to say that i won't be able to wrap this up around halloween which i originally intended. I'll try to wrap this up as quick as i can manage though.

School finally started again the following week, where the circle including marinette were seated in biology, each seated from eachother as they attentively scribbled in their respective notebooks.

“Marinette.” Steven whispered out to her, grabbing her attention.

The blunette’s attention was pulled as soon as she looked over to the curly haired boy-where she noticed the mischievous/secretive glint in his dark eyes. Marinette really hadn’t expected steven to engage in any sort of contact with her given that he was mostly cold with her.

“What is it?” her voice was low and quiet as she tried not to get caught by the nun nearby.

“Wanna go on a...field trip later on?”

Marinette was puzzled, but felt the stares of the others, proven as she later discreetly turned around to face them.

“…Okay?”

* * *

Rock music softly played on pandora, and through dark-coloured lenses steven drove out to what seemed to be the woods, which was perfect for a quiet nature-walk, where the others boarded the car with him. The black pearl necklace that mari donned along with a choker necklace seemed to be no match to the pagan-like jewellery that draped over darcy’s full chest.

The blunette felt so out of place-she really wasn’t, but whether they were very the top, such as leathery, spiked, distressed or basically all of the above she felt like she barely added to the monochromatic drama by only wearing a simple black dress she designed one point in time, accompanied by the dark sunglasses she coincidentally bought along with the others.

As soon as steven parked the car to what her considered a “safe place”, they eventually stormed to the woods for a place to set out what they intended to accomplish earlier. Manon’s glory was practically everywhere; dappled sunlight bathed the quintet in gold as they walked, where birds occasionally glided past them. Idle yet enthusiastic chatter flitted through the once silent woods as they all talked about the magic they were due to embark on/perform all together.

**_Earth, air, fire, water._ **

In the clearing later sat the quintet, hands held all together and heads bowed in nothing but deep concentration. Voices blurred all together into one solid noise as they all chanted the elements.

**_Earth, air, fire, water._ **

Steven and Sabrina shared Fire-somewhat of a perfect element to match their temper. Connie was Water, a more calming force. Darcy was Air.

And lastly-Marinette was Earth.

Connie rested the sharp blade of an athame-which she grabbed after the chants subsided-gently against steven’s chest, carefully trying not to puncture it.

“It is better that you should rush upon this blade...than to enter the circle with fear in your heart.” Connie smirked at steven who also shared the same daring glint she had in her eyes. “How do you enter, steven?”

“With perfect love-and perfect trust.” As he handed her the blade he smirked at her in response, where he and connie shared a slow, chaste kiss. If sabrina still had feelings for steven, her jaw would _definitely_ clench with profound jealousy at the sight-but she only just rolled her eyes and smirked as the two embraced each other for a while.

After that little embrace connie later addressed over to sabrina, pointing the blade towards her.

“It is better that you should rush upon this blade than to enter the circle with fear in your heart,” She asked again. ‘How do you enter?”

“With perfect love and perfect trust.” Sabrina prodded a simple kiss against connie’s cheek for a second, before retrieving the blade from her, and proceeded to do the same to darcy.

As marinette silently watched as sabrina returned the blade over to steven, fear thrummed in her heart as a knot tied deep into the pit of her stomach-. She realised that she was _next_.

“It is better that you should rush upon this blade than to enter the circle with fear in your heart,” steven gently pointed the blade to the base of her neck, where marinette’s blood ran cold. “How do you enter?”

Marinette remained silent for at least two seconds- she could hardly speak as she looked on at stevens icy eyes, where the older teenager’s impatience made it feel necessary for him to try to explain it to her slowly-before the blunette finally spoke.

“With perfect love-and perfect trust.”

“Alright, pucker up.” He offered his cheek for mari to leave a kiss on, which the blunette complied after a moment.

After that, steven held the athame, extending his muscular arm as he thrusted it high, “As above,” before immediately thrusting it downward and plunging it deep into the dirt. “so below.”

After a while, marinette was met with pain enough to make her withdraw at the feeling as a pin slowly plunged into her fingertip. She watched with a gradually paling face as the others slightly lowered their fingers into a decrepit communal chalice as their individual blood dropped from their small wound one by one-and she felt almost sick to her stomach as soon as she watched them suck any leftover blood from their fingertips.

Shaking hr head gently, she sighed as she lowered her finger in the chalice not wanting to be left behind.

Darcy was the first to pick up the chalice, holding it close to her plump lips as she centred herself before her coven.

“I drink of my brother and my sisters,” she began, “and I take into me the power to be beautiful outside, asd well as in…and to confer the most _ruthless_ retribution upon those who spurn me. That especially means worthless, _disgusting_ pieces of _shit_ like sofia and savannah. And the rest of my family-if you will.”

Darcy later sipped from the chalice, before placing it for another to drink from.

“I guess I’m next,” connie leant over to retrieve the chalice. “I drink of my brother and sisters, and I ask for the ability to not loathe those who loathe me. Especially to sofia and savannah read, along with their clique.”

“I drink of my brother and sisters, and I take into me the power for my father to love himself more-and to allow him to be respected more by others around him.” Sabrina said. “Not a love spell or anything- but…just…make everyone make my daddy feel accepted…make them like him enough to look past that whole “tough ex-convict” appearance-will you?”

Marinette felt uneasy, but realised that it was her cue once the attention was placed all onto her as every look at her.

“We’re _waiting_.” Steven said to her.

“Oh…right on?” she said with as much support as she could even try to muster at the moment as she slowly picked up the silver chalice, “I…drink of my brother and sisters-.

Her mind raced as she stared into the blood inside the chalice. Everyone already asked for what they want-but what would _she_ ask for?

 ** _ ~~To support her dream career?~~_** She felt like cheating just solely to revel in nothing but fame and fortune every which way wasn’t _particularly_ the way to go.

 ** _ ~~To Adrien to love her?~~_** Her crush on her object of affection had _definitely_ soured in light of what happened back in paris-and her moral code immediately coached her into realizing that love is better earned than randomly given.

She stopped short as soon as she remembered paris.

**_Her…_ **

Of course.

 _Now_ she knew.

“I drink of my brother and sisters,” she spoke up more clearly now, “and I ask to confer the most ruthless retribution upon those who spurn me. Particularly to my _greatest_ adversary- _Lila Rossi.”_

The blunette immediately took a small sip from the chalice, where she later passed it over to last but not least-steven.

“Now we’re talking.” steven retrieved the chalice, where he looked around his coven. “I drink of my sisters, and I take into myself… _all_ the power of manon.” 

As he finished, he pulled the chalice to his lips as he proceeded to drink the leftover red wine in one go-until it spilled down his chin. He wept it away with the sleeve of his leather jacket as he later finished-before looking up at everyone.

“Blessed be.” He grinned.

“Blessed be,” the rest of the coven chorused-where they later laughed all together. Marinette released a small giggle herself, before joining in with the others.

“Oh my god,” darcy’s voice clipped through the pleased laughter, managing to grab everyone’s attention.

“What is it, darcy?” connie asked.

Darcy pointed a finger to the sky for everyone to see, “Look alive.

As everyone followed, a swarm of monarch butterflies flew above the coven, leaving it for everyone to take in-where later on, the beauty of the ethereal creatures later surrounded the quintet for them to see.

“Amazing…” marinette stared at the plethora of gorgeous winged creatures with wonder.

Sabrina took the liberty to voice what everyone knew and understood who might be behind this without a doubt.

“It’s them…it’s manon.” the brazilian girl noticed with astonishment.

“I don’t _believe_ it,” steven said, voice lowered with pure, breathless shock. “They’re actually listening to _us_.”

A butterfly detached itself with the others as it slowly flew down on the palm of connie’s hand. The Indian girl looked on at the creature with a throng of wonder, awe-and later released a small laugh of joy.

But steven couldn’t listen to the sound the coven’s laughter as he found his attention guided to the flock of butterflies-staring past them, into the sky, and later, to the sun through the dark lenses of his sunglasses-and into the face of his god.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Witchay Mare-ay.
> 
> The butterfly scene was honestly the most wholesome thing in the movie.
> 
> More to come.


	7. deep space

Everyone didn’t expect a smiling sabrina to arrive to French class the following morning. From what they could make out as she walked between the other students that sat beside their partners, tears made clean tracks down her cheeks as soon as she inaudibly sat her designer bag to the desk, where she sat down beside the others.

“It _worked_.”

* * *

“I…I can’t believe it.”

The Brazilian girl’s striped stocking-clad legs splayed to the grass as she later sat outside with her coven as soon French ended.

Marinette was _astounded_ to say the least-she didn’t expect the ritual they partook in yesterday to actually _work_ for one of them.

“Everyone likes him…people are accepting him now. Nobody’s afraid of him anymore. He couldn’t stop smiling, they both couldn't...i couldn’t stop crying.”

Tears pricked at sabrina’s eyes as she looked up to the others. “Thank you guys _so_ _much_.”

“Don’t thank us-thank our god.” darcy halted, smiling at her. “Thank _them_ for making it happen.”

“I can’t believe it-“ connie said. “It’s working. The spell is _actually_ working.”

Steven’s jaw tightly clenched with a mix of irritation and resentment-too immersed in scrolling through the screen of his phone as tried not to notice, or at least overhear what he considered as nothing but idle chatter in the air.

_When will it ever work for him?_

* * *

The lights in connie’s room were dimmed considerably as the coven were later gathered in connie’s house later tonight. A bowl of popcorn amongst other snacks, along with an obsidian ashtray that sat next to a pack of cigarettes sat on the sleek floor, where everyone sprawled out there in question.

“It’s hard you know?” darcy sighed, as she lied flat on her back on her pillow.

“Obviously?” sabrina took a slow drag from her cigarette, where a gleeful smirk made its way to her dark lips. “You two are like, at least two feet away from each other.” Suddenly, a pained groan sounded from her as steven reached across her lithe body to snag the obsidian ashtray from her.

“Relax, wiatch. I’m not even that heavy.” he grinned.

“How so? You’re literally a walking mountain of fat and muscle.” the ravenette lied on her stomach before later turning over to darcy, “No offence on the “fat” part, darce.”

“None taken?” darcy shrugged, as she reached for the tub of half-eaten ice-cream, “If we’re talking about body types, I’d say you’re honestly light as a feather.”

Sabrina’s one thick eyebrow slightly rose; “yeah…I _guess_ I am.”

“Did you guys…ever play that game?” marinette dared to ask. Everyone’s eyes turned to her at that, trying to figure out what she meant by that.

“Play what?” connie asked.

“Light as a feather, stiff as a board?” marinette proceeded to explain, “One person lies down, and the others surround them….you put your fingers underneath.”

Much to her initial shock, sabrina _really_ didn’t expect to be the focal point of the little game however-she lied down onto the floor as everyone knelt beside her. Steven and connie sat together beside her, with darcy and marinette flanking each other on the other side, the quartet’s individual index and middle fingers underneath her body.

“Now just imagine if sabrina was light, as light as a napkin.” marinette suggested silently, “As if she was completely made out of air.”

“Is that her whole body-or just her _head?”_ darcy snarked, earning a chuckle from steven.

“Oh fuck off, wiatch.” sabrina spat.

“Everyone, concentrate or it won’t work.” The blunette immediately rebuked.

With collective sighs at what they considered was marinette’s downer behaviour, darcy, steven and connie immediately closed their eyes with the blunette, as they began to chant in unison.

**_Light as a feather, stiff as a board._ **

**_Light as a feather, stiff as a board_ **

**_Light as a feather, stiff as a board._ **

**_Light as a feather, stiff as a board_ **

**_Light as a feather, stiff as a board._ **

Even through cooperatively closed eyes-they didn’t acknowledge that their hands rose along with sabrina’s lithe body-as the latter floated at least a good 3 inches above the floor.

**_Light as a feather, stiff as a board._ **

**_Light as a feather, stiff as a board_ **

**_Light as a feather, stiff as a board._ **

**_Light as a feather, stiff as a board_ **

**_Light as a feather, stiff as a board._ **

Slowly, almost unconsciously-marinette gently felt her fingers slip away from underneath sabrina. She gently opened her eyes-before immediately gaping at the particular sight she’ll never forget.

“Oh…oh my _god_.” the blunette whispered with astonishment.

Steven, along with connie and darcy had also let go. Connie could barely speak-pearly teeth clacked as she stared at the floating sabrina before her and the others.

“Holy _fucking shit_.” whispered steven.

“Amazing,” came darcy's small voice.

Sabrina however didn’t seem to notice, as her eyes remained closed-clearly one yawn away from drifting off to sleep.

“Guys-i don’t think this shit’s even working.” She shrugged.

“Don’t talk or you’ll fall.” Marinette spoke out to her, silently yet automatically.

Sabrina opened her eyes gently looking over to her side-where her eyes immediately widened at what she saw.

“Jesus _fucking Ch-“_

But as if on cue, the eerie yet awed silence came to a close as soon as the door slowly opened-and in came Priyanka, holding towels in her arms.

By pure luck, a heavy thump sounded in the room as sabrina immediately fell to the floor before the older woman could practically witness anything.

“My ass!” she laughed as she sat up.

“Connie, what’s going on here?” Priyanka asked, voice ranging with concern as soon her daughter immediately ran to her to cover the scene.

“Nothing at all, mum!” she vocally backpedalled, taking the towels in her arms as she tried to push her mother away.

“Are you kids getting _high?”_ she almost assumed-before connie hastily whisked her away.

“Not at all mum-but thanks for the towels though!” the Indian girl said as she immediately slammed the door in her mother’s shocked face.

Getting high? Priyanka had _absolutely no idea._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the constant slew of unimportant chapters, things pick up just a little bit more soon
> 
> more to come


	8. Vicissitude

A feeling of pure uneasiness/dread originally made itself home in the pit of the stomach in one particular Connie Maheswaran when passing by sofia and her posse at swim practice.

To ever hate another was most _definitely_ unlike her-but she can’t help but grow to despise the girl and her sister for turning what was a pleasurable experience for her lessen the knots in her stomach to an experience for her to dread every time she walked to the pool.

However this particular early Friday morning, as she walked to the high diving board an noticeable feeling of self-assurance and reliance was there to cancel the discomfort out for her-as soon as she remembered the idea of the spell she made not too long ago.

“Careful, Maheswaran!” sofia called out, voice as condescending and as cunning as ever.

“Yeah, don’t hit your head on the diving board!” savannah followed with her.

Connie just silently adjusted the swim cap that tightened over her head, giving the sisters a gaze of _steel_ as she did.

Sofia and savannah later sat beside their posse, their attention later leaving the dark-skinned girl as they did. Two sets of hands used their own thoughtless fingers to pull of the swim caps-and to sofia’s mounting horror, she was the first to realise that sight of a thick rope of brown hair inside.

“Oh-“ as soon as a few girls in her posse turned over to her, she didn’t acknowledged the pure shock they shared as a hand immediately went touch her mane, where strands immediately proceeded to fall out every which way. Her horror was clearly incomparable to savannah’s however, as she immediately let out a scream as all blood drained from her face at the amount of auburn locks she quickly lost in front of her.

“Oh-oh my _god!”_ sofia yelled out.

“Guys, what’s going on?” a tall girl with preferably much more fuller head of darker hair immediately ran for their assistance along with a couple other girls, surrounding them.

“I don’t know!” savannah quickly flailed, the sheer panic in her almost cracked high-pitched voice making her horror and confusion of the situation known.

“What does it look like?!” sofia yelled to those around her.

Connie silently gazed at the scene from afar as she stood atop the diving board-feeling as tall, proud, and rightfully vindicated as ever-barely even the least bit shocked and clueless at the commotion going on below. She realised that now justice had been served-she could go back to being beautiful, educated, all without apology.

She later found her lips flashing a sharp, almost vindictive smirk-and when she realised that she saw enough, she threw her hands along with her chin up high as she later took a stunning, flawless dip in the deep water below.

Darcy and sabrina would be so absolutely _thrilled_ to know what just happened.

* * *

Meanwhile, in the halls, marinette walked through the sea of students. Through the walk, some students took it to mean that she was now a part of the coven as her wardrobe changed considerably-instead of usually donning the uniform like all the other girls in the school, the blazer was tied to her waist, where down to her lower half were distressed leggings with open-toed heels to match to homochromatic outcome of her look. A choker necklace was buckled to her neck, along with a spiked headband to accessorise.

Music from her playlist played in her ears through her airpods as she looked ahead to where she was walking to with almost surprisingly _impassive_ dark eyes.

What she looked at ahead had shocked her to the core however-when she noticed the sight of students laughing at their peer as she walked through them.

Marinette realised that this wasn’t just her ordinary student however-as soon as she got a better look at her.

It was a _seething_ lila who furiously curled into herself with clenched fists, clearly red with fury and embarrassment in the face as she stalked through the halls with alya flanking her. The ombre-haired girl attempted to comfort her friend as much as she could, not aware that lila was practically blowing her off. The Italian girl’s blood boiled by the very moment as many students whispered a storm of disparaging marks (“whore/slut”) to her way as she walked.

It was safe to say that now lila overthrew marinette and took the blunette’s position of being the biggest shame of the school-much to marientte’s ever-growing vindictive glee.

Marinette’s dainty shoulders’ slumped as she looked at the messy sight before her, a strange feeling filling her as she immersed herself in her thoughts.

Marinette was treated the same way the second steven and the others immediately alerted her of the reputation-damaging rumour before homeroom even started. And seeing as she asked manon for revenge against lila-

Marinette’s eyes immediately expanded as soon as she immediately put two and two together.

***Holy _shit_.**

**The spell is actually _working_.***

* * *

  
Darcy had since acknowledged that she was late for class-not just the usual 8:00 late like most students, but practically _white rabbit_ late at this point-it’d almost neared to at least somewhere around 10 am by now. And even then, as always-she could barely be willed to even get out of bed.

Tears that gathered in her eyes threaten to shed down her cheeks as she immediately sat up. She felt that whenever she’d wake up every day, she’d almost instantly realise that she was just a normal, average girl-until the very second she remembered of the body she was in to a point.

Sighing, she just simply wiped away the tears and slowly tried to regain her composure any way she could manage as she pulled the snow-white sheets away from her body, revealing the long nightdress she’d usually don every night. She pulled the uniform she laid out since last night, leaving it on her bed for her to remember as soon as she pulled the nightdress over her head.

She usually avoided look at herself in the mirror every time she’d get dressed. The sight of the horror of the third-degree burns concealed in bandages constantly haunted her.

She didn’t want to look at the scars, not even for a second because of that-but as she remembered the spell from earlier-she thought the complete opposite.

With a deep breath and an almost daring hand, she slightly yet carefully peeled the bandages away from the location of her scars-and as soon as she removed them, her eyes immediately _widened_ , irises shrinking to the size of pinpricks at what she saw before her.

Nothing but pure, soft skin without a _single imperfection_ in _sight_.

As her heart fluttered with shock which also badgered her to go further, a hand immediately reached for her other pudgy arm-and she was met with the same sight-completely _nothing_. She unwrapped her legs, and up to her chest. _Nothing, absolutely nothing at all._

Darcy’s eyes lowered, where tears later bought itself back to life as they began to gather at the corner of darcy’s eyes-they were tears of absolute shock and the least expected, pure unadulterated _joy_ that immediately filled her cerulean eyes with every moment.

As the tears began to cascade to her cheeks, darcy later realised to herself that yesterday’s darcy had officially died-replaced by today’s darcy.

* * *

The warning bell sounded throughout the school where classes eventually started.

The circle later gathered at their seats-where an open seat was left empty beside marinette.

Whispers, particularly over what happened today silently flitted through the room beyond the nun’s recognition-whether it was about the degrading rumours surrounding lila as she became the newest pariah, or about the hysteria back at swimming practice.

Marinette craned her neck to a preoccupied connie, who took notice of the look the blunette gave her the second she started to speak up.

“Have you heard from darcy yet?” she said.

“I called and texted a couple times but she still never really answered back to anything so far.” connie later addressed with concern.

Marinette later turned to sabrina, who shrugged as she shook her head, fidgeting with the charm of her necklace. Steven was just about to chime in, until the door opened.

In came Darcy, standing in the door frame. Asides from the usual timid/mischievous glint in her eyes it was much different-somewhat contrasting her lowered eyes there was a confident smile on her face as she later walked in. Her bangs no longer concealed her face-as her now voluminous hair swept to the side.

“Homeroom starts at 8:45 sharp, Lady Cavendish.” the nun chided silently.

Darcy sassily shrugged off her coat, revealing her new uniform-it was a simple white shirt that was tucked in by the usual plaid skirt. Black stockings were pulled over to both her knees where they stopped to her thighs, complementing her black heels. Hanging the coat to her arm, she walked with almost seductive poise and pride in every step with the new air of self-confidence bought onto her as she made a beeline to her desk.

At that moment, the entire class-the humourless nun included-felt their jaws drop at the now (always) beautiful darcy that walked before them.

“Sorry, my _pedicure_ ran late.” she disregarded to her cheekily, smiling as she walked to her seat with closed eyes.

“Ho-ly _shit_.” Sabrina intoned as her table looked at her with widened eyes. Darcy flipped a stray lock of hair away as she simply sat down next to her coven.

“Dar- _cee_ …” the Brazilian girl later laughed as she looked at the dark brunette.

 _“Holy shit.”_ Steven copied silently, looking at the plus-sized girl from head to toe.

“H-hey, d.w…” a student, preferably named tommy turned over to gawk at his so-called “childhood friend” before him.

“Yeah, hey…” his twin brother, timmy nodded, eyes widened.

Darcy looked at them where one twin turned away meekly-but later found her glance quickly point to a disgusted-looking bespectacled boy who sat far away from her.

Even though she spent her childhood being the butt of every heartless prank these _stupid_ boys pulled on her-as well as many other male and female students there was, darcy didn’t particularly first think of how shallows they were-more on the lines of her reveling with sheer, almost _egotistical_ exhilaration. Everyone constantly shunned her and denoted her as a freak from day one. She never had a date to a dance or a kiss on her own since then-but now with all this power the spell gave her-but now she just wanted to fully usurp the new attention everyone immediately gave her from left to right.

Before her, her four best friends were “apparently” happy for her at the moment; connie, marinette and sabrina definitely were-but she wasn’t particularly sure for steven. He knew and understood that with the other spells the girls made taking effect as of now, he couldn’t stay happy for others too long while he was the only one in the group remaining unloved and most of all, basically _unpowerful_.

A definitely _painful_ realisation hit steven at that moment-when he noticed at that that the only magic that actually worked came straight from _marinette_. What happened to lila, sabrina’s father, and connie-it just so happened to be _marinette_ who wove the lock of hair she obtained from both sofia and savannah then, and later made the chants. And now, darcy.

It became obvious to steven as his blood boiled.

It finally occurred to him now.

Marinette was more _powerful_ than he was.

* * *

The now visibly fuming steven sat on a bench, where the rest of the girls sat down, marinette and connie’s legs crossed where darcy and sabrina’s legs splayed out on the grass as idle chatter flowed in the air. Music blasted through steven’s airpods as he looked too impassive to even care-but his steady, unyielding eyes still smouldered.

“Darcy, you look so beautiful!” connie cooed as she slapped on one of the soles of darcy’s heels. “I can’t believe it at all.”

Darcy’s laughs drew to a close before pointing her heartfelt glance over to marinette.

“It was her. _Marinette_ did it. “

Marinette’s face was raised with a blush, where she immediately chose to deny it.

“O-oh, i couldn’t. It wasn’t me at all, darcy. I didn’t do it.” The blunette hastily disregarded through her quiet voice.

“Yes you _did?_ You did it.” Darcy smirked in response.

“But I couldn’t have though, all I ever did was help.”

“How could you though? You were totally behind it.” Sabrina smirked. “You made the public like my dad and-oh _shit_ , connie tell her what happened at swimming practice.”

“You won’t _believe_ it, darcy.” the Indian girl said as the girls immediately gathered around to hear.

Not wanting to heaer anymore, steven immediately got up form his seat on the bench, shrugging his backpack over his shoulder as he left in a silent huff.

“Steven…” connie said silently, watching as her lover left them.

“What’s _his_ damage?” darcy asked quietly.

“I…don’t think his spell’s working.” Connie sighed.

“What spell exactly?” marinette asked. “I’m only asking this because I don’t really know what he wants from manon…”

“Honey, if we’re being fair we’re all honestly just as stumped as you are on _that_.” Sabrina said. “But as far as I;m concerned-it was _definitely_ something about him not wanting to live a shitty life anymore. And I told him: it’s happening honey. No change is a good change. You need to just deal with it.”

Marinette just looked at steven walking in the distance with wonder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> two chapters in one day, oorah. I originally wanted to post this at least an hour earlier but realised that i had so much more to write as soon as i fully proofread it.
> 
> Karma for everyone, karma for everyone, jiggity jig. (As in sofia and savannah learn not to hate the player but hate the game, everyone wants a taste of D.W.'s strawberry shortcake and lila's kingdom comes falling down.)
> 
> on a side note i just recently published "spellbound" over to my tumblr account, check it out if you haven't. Fair warning that i probably won't post there as much. https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/cherryjolicoeur/search/spellbound
> 
> more to come


	9. glass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was going to post this at midnight but my laptop died on me before i got a chance
> 
> a brief disclaimer that since october's coming to an end (along with this story) I'm going to try to issue a chapter or two at least every day. I practically might not have enough time to meet the deadline this weekend, so I'm only trying what I can manage. I'm also actively trying to push out my new d.w. x steven AU as soon as I'm finished with this story, so I'll be more or less pretty swamped for the next few weeks

Heavy rain sounded from beyond the glass windows, where flames that smouldered innocently on the braided wicks of tall candlesticks happened to only be the spare light in a shadowy bedroom.

Steven kneeled before what was a carefully constructed altar of blades, trinkets and candlesticks amongst various other similar items. Silent whispered errantly flitted through the room as with closed eyes steven chanted in indescribable words under his breath to manon.

**_*How the hell can I ever wish for anything when everything in my life is always wrong?*_ **

* * *

A few days eventually came and went, where a group of girls dressed in leathery/distressed black emerged from an Elantra that was neatly parked to the side of the street.

The aforementioned girls later walked to the front of what was a beautiful apartment building before them. The automatic glass doors opened for them as soon as they all stepped before it, where they went over to the receptionist’s desk to check in.

* * *

The girls later stood before two double doors, where connie became the first to knock on one of them. The doorknob turned in response of the silent rap against the doors, and out came steven.

“Welcome, ladies.” he greeted, arms extended.

Huge, dramatic glass windows filled the predominantly elegant white living room, letting the sunlight pool over the pristine alabaster floor-where a large marble fireplace that sat below a large flatscreen was over on the other side of the room.

“Oh, _kick ass!_ Dude, you are _one rich motherfucker!”_ sabrina plopped down on the white couch as she vocally luxuriated in the gorgeous edge the apartment had. “This was so _worth_ the half-hour long drive.”

“Very, very rich….” darcy intoned with awe as she looked around.

“Yup.” Steven later returned to the sitting room with two girls who looked slightly above his age, following him. Their attention was gathered to the girls in particular-but marinette somehow felt as if she was the odd one out as she never really remembered seeing them around before.

“Marinette, this is Penelope, or Peridot, my adopted sister from France.” a petite girl with a head of curly platinum blonde hair nodded politely, “and that over there my friend, is Ella, or Spinel. She’s my stepsister.” A slightly taller girl with black/hot pink ombre locks tied into pigtails gave them a quick, almost cautious look as she silently looked away from them.

“Hello, its very nice to meet you.” the blunette extended a hand to both girls, where peridot gladly shook it.

“Nice to meet you too.” peridot sported an award-winning smile, her pristine diamond jewellery twinkling in the sunlight. Spinel however looked a bit wary of the blunette’s friendly presence before she gently proceeded to do the same.

“It’s alright sis-she won’t bite.” he silently whispered comfortingly to the shorter girl. Spinel silently nodded, as she looked away, arms politely fastened behind her back.

“Steven, are you sure you don’t want to go out to lunch with the rest of us?” the blonde asked him. “I figured we’d have a lot of catching up to do now that mumma and papa are back together?”

“Certainly _, petite cherie_ -i have a lot of business with this lot to attend to.” he confirmed for her. “Very important.”

“Well, we’ll be back until later okay? We’ll bring you back some leftovers for you. And it was really nice seeing you guys.” the ray of sunshine initially prompted-and within that, she and spinel were out the door. Spinel gave one look to the group, before leaving before her adopted stepsister.

* * *

Night eventually fell as time passed by-and everyone lounged around steven’s new bedroom, where sounds from the flatscreen idly played in the background, the sound of rock music and idle chatter practically cancelling out the noise. The moon’s bleached glow along with the bright lights the city offered through the cut-glass windows pooled over the wall-to-wall carpet, where everyone sat around his king-sized bed.

Steven took a slowly drag from his cigarette as he lied his head against his soft pillow-before directing his glance to the chatting girls before him.

“You all want to head to the beach?” he asked.

Sabrina looked up from her slice of pizza where this piqued her interest, but marinette chose to ask him why.

“At this time of night?” came the blunette’s voice, “Why now?”

Steven later stood up from his bed, slowly walking around as he proceeded to explain.

“We aren’t heading out now-like sometime before dawn. We just want to give manon thanks. Small sacrifices.” He stated briefly, “We’ve been taking and taking lately; so I think that it’s time we give back.”

* * *

As they walk out from the car, five black silhouettes filed out to the car park of the beach, against the colouring sky. The pre-dawn gusts errantly flap through their particular outfits as they stuck together out on the beach.

Most bought items of their own of the ritual-in steven’s hand was a glass mason jar-but inside was a small snake that errantly slithered around in the glass. In connie’s was only a wooden cage with a parakeet-where darcy held a monarch butterfly that flapped around in another jar, and sabrina, a baggie filled with water, where a goldfish swam around in it. Marinette however walked behind them, as it seemed to be the only one who didn’t bring anything of her own.

Darcy wrapped up a task of laying stones around in the sand, where steven just recently ignited a fire right in the centre.

Everyone, with the exclusion of marinette who just watched however, obeisantly placed their own offerings inside the ring-where they later sat down on the sand.

“Manon, ruler of earth, maker of waves, bringer of fire, we present these modest sacrifices.” steven spoke automatically.

A flame enveloped the wick of a black candle as everyone lit each of them with steven’s lighter, where they later stood and moved in a circle.

“Winds of the west, strong and true, aid us in our magical work on this, the shortest day and the longest night. “ steven chanted aloud. At that, wind immediately picked up and stirred, where it blew long locks of the girls’ hair across their faces.

“Serpent of old, ruler of deep, guardian of the bitter sea, show us your glory. We pray of thee, we pray of thee, we invoke thee.”

Marinette didn’t realised it at first, but when she later gained sense of what was going on behind steven’s intention, she absolutely shocked by what he was really trying to do-and immediately chose to speak out against it.

“Steven, this isn’t _thanks_ ,” she countered, “You’re…you’re all trying to _invoke_ _him_.”

“If we told you, we’re sure that you wouldn’t have come.” came darcy’s voice as she glanced back at the shocked blunette before her.

Behind them, the morning sun nears the horizon. Shaking her head, the parisian girl immediately stood up and later walked away from her coven, much to steven’s chagrin.

“ _Hey,”_ he snapped at her from afar, “Get _back_ in the ring!”

Dozens of fish jumped above the surface of the water, where the goldfish sabrina bought along violently flailed on its body.

“We _want_ to do this, marinette.” connie spoke out to her. “We _want_ this.”

“We want to have this. I really have no idea what is it that you’re so _afraid_ of.” darcy asked the blunette, which managed to stop her.

“I’m _not_ afraid.” she countered.

Steven however extended his hand to the blunette, where she looked at him.

“Please, marinette.” he said.

Shaking her head marinette slowly chose to come forward, making her way back into the ring as she took his hand.

Far out to the sea, from the considerably darkening sky, a bolt of lightning charges from a cloud and to the ocean-coinciding with a slow, delayed rumble sounding from afar.

“Show us your glory…” steven requests silently-his grasp tightening. Trough the thrashing wind, the parakeet rapidly beats against the wooden cage, desperately trying to force its head through the slats.

“Manon, we invoke thee!!!” Steven shouted. His eyes roll back in his head as he fell to the sand, much to marinette’s rising horror.

“Manon…! FILL me!”

Without warning the mason jars that held the snake and butterfly later shattered-where the snake slithers off to the sand safely, but the butterfly however was tossed away through the violent gust. The wooded cage snaps apart, allowing the parakeet to free itself to the sky. The water-filled bag burst open with a small explosion of room-temperature water, the goldfish lolling on the sand through it.

Steven’s body thrashed violently, the ground actually shaking below them, akin to an earthquake. Marinette’s aghast bluebell eyes jumped over to her environs; to a trouncing steven as he screamed to the sky, to the ocean, to the snake sidewinding away through the sand.

“ ** _FILL_** ME!!!!!” he screeched out.

The sky lit up as a huge bolt of lightning rapidly descends on the circle.

**_“AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!”_ **

**_“STEVEN!!!!!!!!!”_** connie screeched.

* * *

The sun sat in the centre of the sapphire sky glowing down two girls laid out on the sand.

Groggily, darcy and sabrina stirred from their sleep-where marinette and one connie with a lowered head sat beside them. Tears dried to the Indian girl’s cheeks as they made clean tracks down her discoloured face from earlier.

“ _Jesus_ …” sabrina muttered with exhaustion as she gathered herself, “What happened last night?”

“…were they here or what?” darcy asked tiredly.

The goldfish from earlier still pathetically flapped on the sand-only fort marinette to finally chose to be its key to salvation as she knelt to gently pick it up. She carried it protectively in her hands as she walks to the shore, freeing it in the waters, where it later swam away from her.

Realisation slowly seemed to have caught her as she realised how the calm the rowing ocean was; there was not a single cloud marring the blue sky.

Arid at least a dozen yards in the distance stood steven-as he actually stood on the surface of the water. Sabrina, connie and darcy walk beside her, watching with a silent, transfixed edge as steven walks all the way to the shore.

Steven later met with his coven in one piece. A detached gleam ran through his eyes, making it known through his facial expression as he eerily stared at them.

“Did you feel them?” he silently asked. He was met with nothing but silence as the girls just stared back at him-particularly marinette with her widened eyes, mainly unsure of what to think of his unsettling behaviour.

“They blessed me-he ran through my veins. I still _feel_ them.”

The wails of an ambulance sounded from afar on the beach, cutting his words short-and over on that less vacant area, it appears to be some kind of commotion. A news van, along with a flashing coast guard jeep was amongst a crowd of many onlookers.

Everyone proceeded to gather their bearings as they left the area to investigate, with steven slowly following after them as soon as they left.

A great white shark seemed to have beached itself far onto shore as it lied motionless in the sand, blood seeping from its eyes and slightly opened mouth. A loud, stream of wicked laughs sounded from steven as he revelled in the dismaying sight.

“Beautiful….fucking _beautiful_.” he whispered through his ragged laughs. “Look…”

All along the coast was a storm of more beached sharks-preferably at least around fifteen of their kind swarming the area with their bloodied corpses.

Marinette was the only one with a dep pang of profound, silent horror mounting in her as she backed away-but sabrina, darcy, and more surprisingly connie seemed to be ones to share blank looks at what they saw before them.

“Manon…” steven said, as he stealthily approached one of the sharks, “Manon is great….he loves us….all of us. This is how we know, ladies…”

Marinette felt absolutely _sick_ to her stomach-completely _nauseous_ as she couldn’t bare the sight for a second. But steven however just kept progressively taunting her with his unnerving demeanour as he laughed, his dark eyes glazed over with nothing but demented bliss.

“ _Thank_ _you_ , manon!” he kneels down to kiss the sand.

_“Manon is great!”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they aren't particularly prominent characters, but i hope you all had fun meeting peridot and spinel for a while, i thought that since they're steven's sisters another human AUs i thought it make sense to include them in the mix here
> 
> more to come


	10. Suddenly Steven

A white towel supplied by the coach was tied around connie’s waist, damp dark curls resting above her lowered shoulders as she slowly walked through the girls' showers. Steam wafted through the area, where idle chatter filled the area in the distance as members of the swim team were immersed in deep conversation with one another through the action of post-swim grooming.

Connie however suddenly had her eyes locked on long, damp, matted strips of brown/blonde hair that constantly trailed over the tiled floor. The trace of hair followed around the corner as connie silently yet slowly followed-but her ears later became strained to the sound of what seemed to be broken, horrified whimpers from afar.

She kept walking further-where she later stumbled upon sofia. Several towels wrapped around her trembling body as she tearfully hugged her knees.

Connie felt her heart immediately drop as she looked up to sofia’s head- and the sight of it horrified her to the core. To the eye, her scalp was hideously _damaged_ -it was a ravaged, scaly dome of scattered leftover tresses and festering blisters every which way.

Through her blurry vision, sofia looked up to the Indian girl that silently stood before her from the distance.

“It…it won’t stop falling out-“ she whispered tearfully. She pulled a limp hand through what was left of her hair, shoulders slumping as a lock was on the palm, ”I…I don’t understand it…”

Sofia later forced her scrunched up face to the palms of her hands.

 ** _“What the fuck did I ever do to deserve thi_** _s?!”_ after she screeched out those words, her attention left connie as she was immediately reduced to a mass of quivering, heartbroken tears.

 ** _*You should know and understand what you’ve done.*_** a silent voice that’s tone rang with vengeance sounded through connie’s head-but as she tried to disregard the voice, she immediately stepped back from her sobbing bully, her glance unable to evade the sight of a few other girls rushing past her as they hurriedly attempted to address her.

“Sofia, what happened?!” a girl of her posse asked with horror.

“I *sob* I d-don’t **_k-know!!!”_**

“I’ll go get the nurse for you, just stay right here!”

“No, no _ple-eease!”_

The sound of sofia’s horrified, broken cries were all quickly cancelled out by the absolutely _earsplitting_ banshee-like screech that resounded from the other side of the girls’ showers.

**_“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”_ **

* * *

Marinette allowed herself through the double doors that led to french, and looking over to the nun’s desk she took notice that class has not yet started. Looking to the area where her desk sat, she noticed that the others haven’t arrived themselves. She took it to mean with connie that the Indian girl was still away at swimming practice-where she wasn’t particularly too sure about the others.

Shrugging her bag over her shoulder she just silently chose to walk to her seat, but a sight caught her eye as she found a group of predominately female students crowded over one particular table.

Malicious giggles silently flitted over the small band of girls as one by one they each wrote on the table. They eventually withdrew from it, bursting into full laughter at what they’ve just done.

Marinette later stepped a bit closer where she felt certain that any of the girls wouldn’t notice her to try to get a closer view of what they wrote-and was immediately astounded at what she saw.

Degrading slurs, such as “slut/whore/skank” were all scribbled with permanent marker from what the blunette could make out. She didn’t know what to think-but didn’t particularly have the time to do so when the girls scrambled back to their seats once they found lila saunter inside with alya dutifully trailing behind her.

Marinette returned to her seat as she watched the two make it inside-she became ware of the absolutely exhausted look on her cherubic face. Marinette looked at the desk at least one more time-and immediately became horrified and completely stuck for words she realised that the table the girls had defaced-was actually _lila’s spot._

Nothing could ever prepare marinette as she glanced at the absolutely scandalised, if not completely _outraged_ look that dominated the Italian girl’s face once she became aware of the mess on her side of the desk.

* * *

Connie’s more vengeful side didn’t want to make it known for her, tried to cancel the feelings out of other, but down to the pit of her stomach she actually felt a pang of guilt plaguing that area.

After spending her life in school being immersed in suffering for more than she could ever count by her vocal adversary, she finally got her wish-but however the feeling that settled in her was practically anything but glee. 

Through the walk outside the courtyard to try to search for steven, she found herself stopping in her tracks as she nearly walked right into the boy in question.

“Hey, lover.” Without warning he slowly pulled in to prod a kiss against her forehead, until connie withdrew.

“What’s wrong?” he asked her.

“Steven…” the Indian girl tried to explain-but found herself mainly short of words for the most part. “Marinette bought me here. She told me to get you for her.”

“Any particular reason?”

“She told me that we all needed to have a talk. A very _serious_ one, if I’m correct.”

* * *

A secluded area of the courtyard was thick with tension that swarmed over the quintet, where they all gathered. A dark cloud hung over steven as a look of irritation smouldered in his lowered eyes as he crossed his arms.

“So this is why you gathered everyone here? To talk about _me?”_

“Steven…we just need you to _listen_.” connie said. The Indian girl turned to the blunette, who slowly walked up.

“I can’t speak for everyone,” came marinette’s voice-ever the authoritarian as she centred herself before the taller teenager, “but I think that I have it in good authority that it’s time to say that enough is enough already.”

“ _Enough?”_ the word piqued steven’s confusion as he tried to read everyone’s monosyllabic expressions.

“I just don’t know what’s going on with this. Everyone’s completely _humiliating_ lila.You weren’t there to see it, but when I went to French this morning, I saw her other students vandalizing her desk...when she sat down, everyone was treating her…the same way everyone did in my _original_ _school_.”

“I don’t understand this either. Why do you even care about that?” Sabrina asked. “You acted like you hated this bitch for ruining your life from the beginning. You asked for revenge at last Thursday’s ritual. Why the sudden complete 180 and shit?”

“I just wanted her to leave me alone. All I wanted was for her to get off my back.” the blunette silently replied-as if that would explain everything. She later turned to darcy, “And you, darcy-what’s going _on_ with you? You used to be so nice. Now you’re just _completely_ _narcissistic_.”

“I’ve spent a big chunk of my life being a monster thanks to my arsehole parents. Now i’m finally out of those woods i’m having a good time with my life on track, so I’m sorry if that’s offensive to your morality.” the plus sized girl jabbed.

“But what about what happened to sofia and savannah? How they both have to stick to wearing hats and wigs just to cover up their heads from now on-“

"Ok-who gives a _fuck?!"_ her voice was raised as soon as she countered the blunette. "Those _assholes_ _deserved_ what was coming to them! I spent my whole _freaking_ life being treated like _shit_ by all of them so excuse _me_ for teaching them a goddamned _lesson!_ You casted a _fucking_ revenge spell just like some of us, you wanted to get back at that Lila bitch so _stop_ acting like you’re the bigger person out of all of us! Stop _badgering_ me into thinking that _I’m_ the one in the wrong for giving them what they deserved!"

“I’m not acting that way, darcy, I’m not-“

“ _Sure_ you _fucking_ _aren’t!”_

Slightly faltering by the plump girl’s sudden outburst, marinette just shook her head and sighed, trying to get back to the meat of this situation.

“Look-I just feel like we’re all getting out of control.” she proceeded to explain after a long bout of silence, “I know that we’re all finally getting what we wanted for so long out of our lives for now-but we also need to consider that it’s going to come back to us in threefold, sooner or later.”

Looking at the simmering darcy had her back turned on everyone, connie sighed as she realised that this was her cue to add her opinion as well.

“I think I agree with marinette on this one myself.” she spoke up. “We’ve already gotten what we’ve wanted from those spells. Right now, we all should at least try to _think_ if we want to keep this going. One of these times, the light won’t always be green.”

Connie later walked over to steven, gently holding his muscular hand into hers.

“Steven…maybe you should at least...try to take this into consideration?” she recommended.

Steven’s eyebrows furrowed at her suggestion, “What?”

“You know-they’ve got a point….” sabrina finally spoke. “Steven, out of all of us-you honestly strike me as being out of control?”

 _“What?”_ he repeated, his voice louder than the first time. “…out _of control?”_

“…i just think it’s totally possible that you could get... _hooked_ to the craft?” she considered staying pragmatic with her words as she tried to explain to him. “…like, Steven, honestly-“

”WILL YOU-JUST **_FUCKING SHUT UP?!”_** he screeched, _“I HAVE **FUCKING SAVED YOU ALL FROM OBLIVION!!!!!!”**_

If looks could kill, all the girls would be beneath the ground as they took notice of the purely enraged ablaze eyes of steven as he seethed before them.

“Can’t you _fucking_ _see that?”_ he said, his voice now lowered considerably.

Steven walked over to sabrina, his stare pointed to the slightly faltering brazilian girl as he gave her a severe onceover.

“When I met _you_ -not a _single_ person could even _talk to you_! Most importantly-your beloved _daddy!_ Your _dad’s_ an _ex-convict_ who’s been put away for beating the _shit_ out other dudes for more than he could even count back in your _old stomping grounds!_ An _ex-convict_ in _a completely different picture-perfect neighbourhood!_ Do you remember that? Wasn’t so long ago-now was it?”

Darcy’s grip considerably tightened on the leather strap of her crossbody bag as steven later pointed his wild scowl over to her.

“And _you_ -now that you’re all so _beautiful_ and _pretty_ and _perfect_ -“ he made air quotes with every seemingly positive word, “and your _bitch_ sisters and your _asshole_ brother are getting their just desserts for the sake of everyone else in this _nothing_ school-you think everything in your life is all _hunky dory_ for you now-and **_it’s not._** And when I met _you_ not a single person could even stand _the fucking sight_ of you-because you were a **_fucking monster!_** Your whole _family’s_ made that shit known to you for _years on end!_ I won’t ever be _afraid_ to take you back there-and don’t you _ever fucking doubt that!”_

His attention left the seemingly shaken plump girl as he centred himself before the quintet.

“I leave you alone for _TWO MINUTES_ with _her,_ ” he pointed over to marinette, who sat in the distance watching the madness before her, “and you all _just randomly turn your fucking backs on me just like everybody else has_ **_ever fucking DONE!”_** he continued to rage, voice shaking with every negative emotion that ran at a premium, “ _My father, my mother, and my fucking sisters!_ And last but not _least_ -my **_own fucking girlfriend!_** Doesn’t that mean _anything_ to you _at all, Connie?! Huh?!”_

“Steven…” the Indian girl breathed silently-her inaudible voice only left for him to hear.

“ ** _I have GAVE YOU ALL SO MUCH-PUT IN A GOOD FUCKING WORD FOR YOU THROUGH OUR FUCKING GOD-AND THIS IS HOW YOU FUCKING REPAY ME?! HUH?! BY LEAVING ME FOR…FOR HER!!!”_**

Sepulchral silence fell over the quintet for what seemed to be at least a few minutes, where steven took it to mentally consider to himself that mounting realisation was due to come with a vengeance for each member of his coven.

Connie tried to speak to steven-but he just wordlessly walked past her-before making his way over to marinette-his main central point of his primal rage-who’s shoulders slumped as he gradually approached her, to a distance where the two were nose to nose with each other.

“And to you, you _snot-nosed_ little _bitch_ …” he breathed out to her malevolently, his _venomous_ stare pointing to her slightly impassive eyes, “I only have _one_ _thing_ to say to you. Just _one thing. So listen here-and i want you to just listen good for me.”_

 ** _“DON’T. YOU. EVER. FUCK WITH ME!!!”_** spittle directly landed on the blunette’s face as he screeched himself hoarse at her, ** _“ARE WE FUCKING CLEAR?! STAY THE FUCK OUT OF MY WAY!!!!”_**

Steven closed his eyes, later immersing himself in mounting silence as he proceeded to calm himself down.

“Do you want _in_ , or _out_ of this circle?” he asked. “Give me an _answer._ I want answers, and I want them. _Now.”_

Nothing but an almost long ring of silence still loomed from the blunette.

“That’s what I _thought_ ,” a wry, spiteful curl made its way to steven’s lips as he slightly drew himself closer to marinette.

“You’re either _with me,”_ he roughly prodded his finger against her chest for emphasis, _“or against me_. You _stay_ in this circle until _further notice._ Until then-you play by _my_ rules. _Understand?”_

Staring at him with lowered eyes, a wrist ran over her face as she wept the spittle away. Without a second thought-marinette later withdrew herself from him, holding her books close to her chest as she silently stalked off.

Darcy was on the sidelines, silently blinking away any leftover tears that threatened to fall.

“That’s it. Go home. Run away, _little girl!_ Run back home to _GRANNY! She’ll make it all better!”_ steven shouted out.

Marinette disregarded his voice however-as she just kept walking away in the distance.

“...mousy little _bitch_.” he silently snarled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> things are getting heated
> 
> I'm so sorry if this chapter is lackluster, i nearly had writers block and i just almost immediately stopped 
> 
> more to come


	11. penumbra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's lila's time to shine (not for long)

It had been clear since after that confrontation, marinette spent at least the middle of the week constantly fighting inside herself as she walked down the halls of her school one late Wednesday afternoon.

The dappled late afternoon sunlight gave a sparkling radiance to her glitter notebook, as she held it close to her chest as she slowly walked down the near vacant halls.

As soon as she silently arrived in the girls washroom, the blunette had no idea what to think when she was met with the sight of lila before her. The Italian girl stood over the sink with a lowered head-and from what marinette could see, lila looked as if she was on the verge of real tears-which shocked her to the very core.

The door unexpectedly closed behind her as soon as her hand slowly gave out from holding it open-much to marinette’s shock. The heavy “click” drew the attention of lila as she wildly shot up- and through her blurry vision, she immediately saw red once she eyed the parisian girl before her.

“You…” undeniable rage hit the Italian girl like a bus as she immediately withdrew from the sink, stomping over to her. “So it was you… _you_ did this to me.”

Marinette took it to mean that lila considered her to be the first person to be the catalyst of her downfall-and immediately paled as the girl approached her with every menacing step.

“ _You_ did this to me, haven’t you?! _You_ were the one who was behind all this?!”

“I-“

Lila panted like a threatened animal, the absolutely furious, predatorial look in her eyes making the extent of her rage known-giving marinette little time to establish what was going on as with the speed of a cheetah she immediately lashed out at her. Marinette’s horrified scream sounded through the room as the back of her head hit the tiled taupe floor as the Italian girl pounced atop her.

She tried to restrain from lila’s grip, lila’s fist wiggling around in the blunette’s grip where lila eventually managed to free it. The fist later coming in contact with the side of her face. She grabbed

“YOU FUCKING _BITCH!!!!!!_ ” tear after tear sprung free from lila’s eyes through every slap she gave the blunette, “YOU WORTHLESS PIECE OF TRASH!!!!!! YOU _RUINED_ MY _LIFE!!!!!!!_ _YOU’VE RUINED EVERYTHING!!!! EVERYTHING!!!!!”_

Even as she went through every aching punch/slap lila had to offer, a sudden scream sounded from lila as marinette’s fist quickly ran to the centre of her face. The italian girl fell back on her arse-and that gave marinette a chance to immediately hit the ground running as she immediately sped out of the washroom-and outside of the school through the back doors-her briefcase shrugged over her shoulder.

She was unsure of how much she ran as she constantly found herself scrambling through trees and bushes through the colouring sky. Branches reached out to her, marring her skin with scratches as she ran and ran.

Tears cascaded over dried tracks that had since been made on her cheeks as she made it out of school perimeters-and later stumbled up the street, across a freshly mowed lawn as she semiconciously clutched onto her slightly tattered clothing. She finally made it up to the steps, quickly prodding a finger against the doorbell.

She waited a while before out came sabrina from the door, the Brazilian girl’s eyes widened at the dishelleved, teary eyed blunette before her.

“Marinette, my _god_ …” she held her limped hands as she later slowly guided her inside the house.

* * *

A cloth dampened with peroxide ran over the scratches and cuts as with bloodshot eyes, marinette’s bathrobe-clad body was slumped over sabrina’s window seat. Connie carefully positioned a bag of frozen vegetables in place over marinette’s one eye, where silently darcy watched before them, clearly nervous.

“She was crying…and the second I walked inside-“ she half-heartedly recounted. “she immediately assumed it was me-and went insane.”

“She was enraged-and i’ve never seen anything like it.”

Connie’s hands withdrew from the blunette, eyes closed as she clasped one hand over her mouth. She errantly paced around the area, thoughts consciously swarming her head.

“If steven ever finds out-“ the south-asian girl spoke, much to marinette’s horror.

“No!” the blunette snapped, alert, “Don’t tell him!”

Connie gave her friend a look of concern, as she kneeled beside her. “Why ever not, marinette?”

The room grew silent, where marinette’s eyes lowered as she slowly hugged her knees at the mention of their leader. She slowly got up from her seat, before later standing in the centre of the room as she allowed everyone’s eyes to be on her.

“He…” she whispered out, “he…he doesn’t need to know.”

Unbeknown to the Parisian girl, a silhouette from behind gently moves.

“If I didn’t know any better…” came a more deeper, masculine voice.

Marinette immediately whirled around at thew sound of the sinister voice, where its presence grabbed the other girls’ attention-where marinette happened to be the only one to pale at who it was.

Steven gradually sauntered out from the shadows, his eyes tapered as he slowly came forward and from out the darkness.

“…I’d think I’d say you don’t trust me.” He later finished, getting closer to marinette with every slow step.

“N…no….” marinette’s voice was below a whisper, weak and submissive enough for only steven to hear. “I…I really just think that-“

“Shut. The fuck. **_Up.”_** steven’s slightly raised voice dripped with pure **_venom_** as he snaringly spoke of the demand through clenched teeth-pushing it further as he gently touched against a pallid marinette’s pulsing black eye.

“You know, now that I’m looking at this…” he gave the black eye a onceover, holding her chin slightly as he spoke, “I think it’s time for me to have a conversation with this ‘lila’ girl about this…”

“Steven…” marinette intoned silently, as she watched him step away from her..

“Steven,” came connie’s voice as she stood up. “ _Please_ -try not to do anything you’ll regret.”

He turned over to his lover, taking notice of the imploring look on her face-and to him, she almost resembled a little lost puppy.

“When one foolishly chooses to hurt a member of our circle, connie,” he explained mechanically, “they hurt _all of us_.”

“We act as _one_.”

* * *

It had been a half an hour since he made his presence to the other girls known, and steven’s car sped through the vacant streets as it drove into a neighbourhood. As he drove along out on the empty road, passing under each lit streetlight, the lights flickered.

His glove-clad hands gripped at the steering wheel as he drove, silently talking to himself in angered bursts-angered bursts-and from behind, a lamp shatters with a large **_bang_** , within a bright shower of sparks.

A sprawling Spanish-style townhouse, similar to marinette’s-suddenly caught his eyes, where he later parked his car over to the street.

* * *

Alone in her bedroom, lila’s hazel eyes stung bitterly as the confrontation she had with marinette earlier came back into mind.

That _goody-goody bitch_ actually turned her plot to ruin her life against her-and not only it actually _worked_ -she got away with it. Not a single person was aware that she was behind it.

She seethed as she remembered the smile on marinette’s face the day it all went down-oh how she wanted to rip it from her face.

She felt that the beating she gave her earlier would be the only thing to suffice for a while-because that isn’t compared for the idea of revenge she started plotting as soon as she arrived home. She knew and understood very well that this was far from over.

The sound of her bedroom door had closed with a click-almost startling lila before she began to administer it. Wasn’t her door already closed?

“Mum?” she called out. Her mum wasn’t due to arrive home until later, which confused her. As her voice sounded through her room, she wasn’t given an answer.

A figure slowly emerged from the darkness of the night, blue locks of hair cascaded to above her chest, her lowered cerulean eyes holding a glint of venom to them as she slowly came forward from the shadows.

“ _You!”_ the Italian girl yelled out, “What are you doing in my house?”

“Miss me?” “marinette” cooed to her. “I’d bet you’d thought you saw the last of me.”

* * *

Sabrina’s car sped down lila’s neighbourhood, sabrina looking around as she searched for an idea of steven’s whereabouts.

“There’s his car!” connie shouted out, grabbing the Brazilian girl’s attention.

The rubber tires screeched as sabrina immediately pulled over, quickly parking the car to steven’s. At that, all four doors were opened and later slammed shut as everyone ran out of the car. Running over to lila’s house, they immediately made a beeline for the front door.

“We should _not_ be here,” sabrina shouted irritably as they ran for the front porch.

“ _Neither_ should _Steven_.” connie added.

* * *

Lila immediately rolled away from the blunette, astounded.

“What are you going to do to me?!” she shouted.

“Marinette”’s lips form into a wry smirk-before later emerging in a series of body-racking laughs-unnerving the Italian girl for a while-until she finally stopped as she proceeded to get her point across.

“’Nothing will ever prepare for what I’m about to do with you’…well-isn’t _that_ what you told me not too long ago, lila?” she said coyly.

The door immediately slammed to the side-revealing the four girls standing in the doorway, looking as if they were ready for a fight. “Marinette” took notice of their presence from behind, and just looked to the side almost impassively.

“How amazing that you all coincidentally graced me with your presence.” she sighed, not taking her eyes off lila.

 _“Steven!”_ _the real_ Marinette shouted, stepping closer. “Stop this madness! End this _now!”_

“I guess it’s time to drop the ruse?” “Marinette” deduced with a sigh.

At that, she slowly pulled her dainty hands through her face-where much to lila’s shock, stood steven right before her, his petite body forming back to its original muscular form after the short transformation.

“You…” she tried to speak, but was stuck for words at what she saw before her, “You’re a-“

Steven flashed a grin, “Yes. Yes I am. And those girls over there,” he pointed to sabrina, connie, darcy and marinette, “Are all witches themselves.”

“And another thing,” he added, sitting on the edge of lila’s bed. “You were actually right about marinette being behind those rumours. She casted a vengeance spell against you. And that’s _precisely_ why I’m here. To make you have an idea of who not to _fuck_ with.”

“Steven, _enough!”_ marinette immediately yelled, “Look, you already scared the shit out of Lila, you taught her a lesson, thank you _very_ _much_ for that _, let’s just fucking go already!”_

Steven pulled away from lila, his relaxed face forming into a childish pout as he looked at the fuming blunette. “No. She needs to pay. Anyone who hurts a member of this coven is the first on my permanent shitlist.”

Lila eventually managed to free herself from her state of shock, where she scowled at steven.

“Oh, _I’m_ the one who needs to pay?! If it’s anyone, it should be _her!”_ she pointed to marinette, _“I hate that bitch!_ It’s all her fault… _everything is!_ I tried running her out of paris and now that she’s here, she has her _stupid_ grandma and all you _fucking losers_ as friends and she’s _still_ happy! My parents were divorced and _she_ gets to keep hers all _safe and sound!_ And it’s all because she’s _prettier_ than me, _better_ than me…it’s always all about _marinette_ ; _smart marinette, beautiful marinette, amazing popular pretty fun marinette!_ Even when she’s _fucking dead_ everyone would still care about _her_ more than _me!”_

Steven remained silence as he impassively levelled a seething, almost tearful lila as she finished her tirade. After a long bout of silence, his body rose up as he slowly floated upward, his two feet hanging from the carpet-much to lila’s horror.

“I can only think of one way to teach a lesson to someone like you…” he said. “A _spoilt brat_ like you should realise that everything can’t always be about her.”

He floated closer, where lila gradually backed up against the french doors that led out to her balcony, trying to evade him. She immediately resolved to lock the door-but failed as the doors thunderously slammed open before her paling face, where steven floated closer to her.

“I think you’re such a _lying, manipulative, horrible, snotnosed little sack of shit-_ that not even your own _parents_ want to deal with your whiny scheming bullshit-even _after_ they split up.”

Words prepared to retort instantly died in lila’s throat once she gave one good look in steven’s eyes-his dark eyes were ablaze with absolute, ** _primal fury_** with every word he spoke. Lila didn’t know what to say-but realise that whatever steven was ready do to her, she still had some time on her hands to try to save face.

“I’m…” lila’s voice was chocked as she tried to force out words to try to save face. “I actually…didn’t mean that. I was just only throwing a tantrum…and I really didn’t mean anything by it…and I’m…I’m so,,, _sorry_.” the words felt bitter to lila as she tried to apologise-which was something marinette never expected her to actually _do_ to her victims one-on-one. “I’m so _sorry_ for _everything_ , marinette- _really_.”

Lila foolishly took it to mean that steven let the apology flow past his radar-and at random, a small, dry smile slowly crept on her lips, where steven later took notice of it.

“You’re sorry?” he immediately went grim, demoralising the shorter girl at his sudden change, “You’re sorry?!”

“ _You’re SORRY?! YOU’RE SORRY?!”_ he shouted out, directly into lila’s scrunched face. “ ** _YOU’RE SORRY, YOU’RE SORRY, YOU’RE SORRY!!!!!!!_** ” his head wildly rammed back and forth through every furious screech, “ ** _SORRY, SORRY, SORRY, SORRY MY ARSE!!!!!!!!!!!”_**

An earsplitting, inhuman scream emerged from the mouth of steven as a furious gust of wind breezed through the room, knocking everything away from its place with the wrath of its force, where sabrina, connie and darcy carefully held on to each other as they tried not to risk getting blown away by the strong gale.

**_“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”_ **

**_“NO!!!!”_** marinette shouted through his scream.

The heavy force was enough to push lila’s body off the railing of her balcony, as she fell over with a horrified scream that resonated through the whole neighbourhood.

And before the Italian girl even knew it-with a sickening **_crunch_** the back of her head met the flagstone terrace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so lila finally got the boot (as in existence-wise) and things are getting even more difficult for marinette than ever down the road  
> I'm not particularly the best at writing fight scenes between characters, so i'm sorry if the execution on the altercation between lila and marinette was poor. I actually reused bits and pieces for an unpublished steven universe fanfiction in my roster i worked on a while back. 
> 
> More to come


	12. Marinette's Rebellion

“I….I _actually_ wasn’t _aware_ that she died.”

Nausea filled marinette, where a feeling of unease stirred in the pit of her constantly cartwheeling stomach as she sat before a detective standing alongside his assistant.

Gina stood from the threshold of the door, with crossed arms as she looked on to the pair as they questioned her granddaughter.

“Are you _certain?”_ the detective had an initial look of annoyance through his unmarked eyes at marinette’s short statement-gina happened to be the only one to notice it-and he later proceeded to push it further.

“Yes,” the blunette insisted, “yes I am.”

“She doesn’t want to _talk_ about it, detective.” Gina’s voice was almost noticeably firm, as she made it clear to the detective.

“Thank you for your help, marinette.” the partner nodded as she later spoke up in the detective’s behalf, voice more understanding.

Ad the interview later drew to a close at gina’s call, marinette watched from out her window, silently watching as the pair later went in their car-before later driving out of the neighbourhood.

With slumped shoulders, marinette walked over to her bed, slowly sitting down.

“She…she took everyone away from me back in paris…” she spoke, “I didn’t really want her to get hurt or anything.

“Marinetta…” gina’s arms were wrapped around her distraught granddaughter as her closer-but marinette however resisted as she withdrew from her.

“It wasn’t your fault, my leetle fairy,” she insisted. “It was only an accident. You had nothing to do with it. What happened wasn’t any fault of your own.”

“No…no.” marinette shook her head. “Granny, i just really need to be alone right now.”

“Darling-please my dear, listen to me.” Gina tried to reach out to her.

 _“Don’t touch me!”_ tears formed at the corner of her eyes as she snapped at her now stunned grandmother.

“Marinetta…” she whispered. Marinette just lowered her body on her comforter, unable to even look at the older woman in the eye.

“Just leave me alone, granny…” the blunette requested, tears slightly dampening the soft fabric of her pillow. “Everything I touch turns to _shit_.”

Gina gave her granddaughter a forlorn glance-she didn’t bother too look back as she pulled her face into her pillow. Sadly looking away from her, she released a silent sigh as she slowly showed herself out.

Marinette realised that it was time that she needed to do something about this.

* * *

**_I bind you_ **

**_from doing harm, steven demayo...._ **

**_harm against others..._ **

**_and harm against yourself._ **

**_I bind you_ **

**_from doing harm, steven demayo._ **

**_Harm against others,_ **

**_and harm against yourself._ **

* * *

“Can’t say I’ll weep for her.”

“First the read sisters, and now lila.”

“I heard that they moved out of the state because their mum was _actually_ a _huge_ _slut_. It was all over the neighbourhood.”

“That explains why it’s so quiet around here?”

“I’m glad those _bitches_ left.”

Through the throng of students, a downcast marinette walked in the halls one Friday morning. She was underdressed, finally out of the leathery, distressed/tattered blacks she donned a few weeks ago, and now back into being in uniform like the rest of the students.

Everyone around marinette whispered as she walked past then, trying her best to try to evade the stares she was given.

“Marinette.”

The aforementioned blunette slightly jumped up as the familiar-sounding voice pulled her away from her thoughts-where she later turned around to whoever spoke out to her.

It was a somewhat downcast alya before her, who’s lowered hazel eyes looked to the side-almost as if she couldn’t particularly bear looking up at her.

“How..how’re things going?”

“Fine.” the blunette later answered for her bluntly. “My condolences.”

She turned around from her as she proceeded to leave it at that, where alya immediately resolved to stop her.

“ _Wait,_ ” She called out.

The almost pleading edge her voice maintained somewhat urged mari to turn around, which she did. Alya looked almost slightly chastened as she looked at her.

“I-“ the girl tried to speak. “I’m…i’m sorry. For everything.”

Marinette’s head slightly rose, as she unanimously turned around to face her.

“About slapping you, ripping apart your sketchbook, insulting you….everything.” she proceeded to elaborate every detail of her wrongdoing further, where marinette’s eyes gradually grew cold as every mentioning of what the class did to harm her on lila’s behalf ran through her head all at once.

“Ever since lila died…and i just realised that she actually lied about some things….i’ve been doing some thinking…a lot of it, and I feel really bad about some of the stuff I did to you for lila’s sake. And from what I’ve heard, so has everyone else.”

Marinette’s hard, impassive stare still didn’t particularly budge in the slightest at alya’s vocal guilt.

“Okay.”

“But…” alya spoke. “But…maybe if you didn’t _act_ the way you did towards lila-“

Marinette’s head rose, eyebrows slowly furrowing at that.

“What do you mean by that?” she asked almost immediately.

Alya looked to the side, almost as if she wanted to stay pragmatic about her brief explanation. “I don’t think it would’ve killed you to actually give lila a chance.” 

“How _could i?”_ the blunette countered. “I _told_ you and everyone else from the beginning that I didn’t trust her, and instead of taking my word for it no matter how many times I’ve told you you didn’t want to listen.”

‘How could i’ve listen if you weren’t such a jealous harpy over lila? It’s obviously not her fault that you’re always _obsessed_ over her!”

 _“Me?! So **I’m** the jealous harpy?! I’m _the one who should be _condemned as such_ when all i tried to do was _protect t_ he people who made _my life worth living?!”_ the blunette snapped, “In case you haven’t noticed, _you were the one who just_ _left me behind_ for _someone you barely even knew!_ You and _everyone else_ _left me,_ _kicked_ me around when I'm already _down at my lowest point_ as is, and just _dumped_ me in my _own time of need for her!_ And you have the _nerve_ to tell me to my _fucking face t_ hat _I_ was being a _jealous harpy?!”_

A bout of silence immediately reverberated between the two girls as soon as marinette finished. The blunette’s fists were clenched as her lowered cerulean eyes were pointed to her feet, not wanting to look at her former friend in the eye-whereas with alya, the martinican girl realised that she might’ve made a grave mistake with her words.

“ _Damn_ _it_.” marinette silently snarled under her breath.

“Marinette, wait! Mari, please just listen to me!” the ombre-haired girl immediately jumped to her feet as soon as her former friend began to leave.

_“Please!”_

Marinette ignored the distant shouts from behind as she immediately walked away from her. As she walked back in the crowd, she was met with the usual stares and whispers she received her way.

“No, I heard that lila and marinette were fighting over a boy lila slept with, and marinette freaked out and pushed her…”

The girl’s friend who heard her side of the story immediately nudged her-where the girl turns, yet pales at the sight of the walking blunette before her. The two instantly ran off, mortified by her presence.

Marinette immediately opened the door to the girls’ washroom. A few girls later whisper to each other as they watched her from behind, and later rushed out.

Looking at them, marinette’s attention was directed to a large, empty stall, where she later walked in. Locking the door behind her, a silent, choked sob escaped from her mouth as she later slumped down on the loo. Pulling her face to her hands she immediately proceeded to cry, deep body racking sobs sounding from her silently-trying not to completely _lose_ _it_ on behalf of her broken resolve entirely.

Without her knowledge the latch on the stall door slowly slid open by itself-and to marinette’s horror the door immediately slammed open to the side.

“There you are.”

The blunette looks up to see connie, darcy, sabrina, all standing behind last but not least-steven.

A shiver rapidly ran through marinette’s spine as steven walked a step closer to her, his hand on the wall.

“So, how’s the weather?” he asked silently, only for her to hear.

“…fine.” 

“You know-“ steven debriefed. “The _funniest_ thing just happened this morning. The police just so happened to make a quick little stop over at my place today.”

“Mine too,” connie said.

“Thirded.” came sabrina’s voice.

Darcy nodded, affirmatively.

“What did _you_ say to them?” he asked, voice slowly grim.

“I…” she tried to speak as she paled. “I didn’t tell them much. I didn’t say anything to them. Nothing at all.”

“Well, if I were you…that’s what I’d say too.” acid ran through his husky voice as he replied to her silently.

“Ladies…” he spoke out to the others. “I take it that we don't really need a fifth around here anymore…do we?”

Darcy looked around coyly, before smiling. “Not at all, steven.” she agreed.

“Nope.” Sabrina added.

Connie shook her head. “Mm-mmm.”

“But, let’s get just _one_ _thing_ _straight_ here.” Steven asked. “If you're really, _truly_ certain about leaving this circle...then you _just_ _might_ want to take leaving this school in _consideration_.”

“And maybe the city too?” connie recommended, as steven wrapped his arm around her. “We're not sure.”

“Or you can do what my family did and just take everything you own and leave the _state_.” darcy added.

“Or the _planet_.” Sabrina joked.

The girls smirked as they later strode away from marinette, standing behind steven as he slowly withdrew a few inches away from her.

“And _please_ ,” he requested politely. “Don’t do any spells on me.”

Marinette paled as she realised that he was aware of what she did earlier.

“No…i…I didn’t-”

The blunette found herself short of words as steven immediately drew his face back into hers.

“You know, in the old days...” his voice was venomous as it could be as they were nose to nose, “leaving a coven meant _death_. Of the _worst kind-_ to be exact.”

A sunny smile made its way onto steven’s face as he pulled away, standing up.

“Bye!” he waved cheerfully, as he began to leave.

“See ya, _definitely_ wouldn’t want to _be_ ya.” sabrina smirked, following after steven.

“ _Ever_.” darcy nodded.

“Sweet dreams, marinette.” Connie gave her a haunting smile, as her arms were politely cupped together. The Indian girl’s eyebrows were raised along with her eyes however-as those words piqued her interest.

“How _have_ you been sleeping?” she asked silently.

Connie later looked back, and realised that it was her cue to leave-where she later flashed marinette a sickly sweet smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let Marinette say fuck.
> 
> working title for this chapter was actually "halfhearted condolences". I also hope some of you were able to watch the reboot of the craft (if any of you could, spoilers are appreciated to save all the trouble)
> 
> I hate how i wrote marinette and alya's argument scene, i rewrote it at least a dozen times and i'm still not pleased with the execution
> 
> so we're nearly close to the end and things will definitely pick up next chapter  
> 


	13. maniac

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The antepenultimate chapter, the big showdown.
> 
> Content warning for detailed gore (if you're sensitive to blood/insects you are free to skip certain scenes) and a brief scene of domestic abuse. you have been warned.

Marinette undeniably found it near impossible to sleep the whole night, negative and paranoid thoughts consciously swarming through her head at an alltime high like an army of ants ravaging over discarded food. The eerily silent room the blunette laid in was wrapped with the darkness of the night as dozens of sheets surrounded her lower half.

A scratching at the glass of her balcony door nearby lurked behind the drapes-where marinette’s ears were strained to the sound. Slowly pulling the sheets away, marinette walked across the room to check the doors-the scratches increasing with every step she took.

She slowly pulled open the drapes and clearly wilted with pure horror as she slowly looked up; from what she could see through the raindrop-dominated glass, the rest of her coven were airborne outside her balcony, faces chalk white as they stared down at the paling marinette before them.

“We want to talk to you, marinette…” darcy cooed after a while of sound silence between them.

“A…about-about what?” she asked silently.

Steven’s face darkened as a malicious, toothy smirk marred his face.

“Your _suicide_.”

The shattering of glass rang throughout the room as the four unexpectedly fled towards the window, through an explosion of glass. Marinette’s body roughly flung against the far wall, eyes widened as they flew towards her, their hands grabbing at their neck. Wicked, demented laughs filled the choking blunette’s ears as twitching, starving hands collectively attempted to clutch at her neck, strangling her.

Even as she could barely breathe through the constant tightness of her neck, she slowly opened her eyes, before they immediately shot open-her irises shrinking to the size of pinpricks that matched her white face.

It was a vision of lila falling to her head from that night, marinette’s ears filled to the sound of bone snapping, along with that same _crunch_ resounding from her precipitous fall upon impact with the hard flagstone. Lila’s body violently toppled to the side as soon as she made it, where scarlet caked heavily into her scalp and nearly matted into her skull discolouring the very head of her brown locks, the side of her face puddling with blood. 

Marinette’s shoulders dropped on impulse as she released an absolutely blood-curdling scream from the top of her lungs as if her heart had been ripped out through her skin.

 ** _“YOU’RE A TRAITOR AND YOU SHOULD BE CONDEMNED AS SUCH!!!!!!!”_** shouted a disembodied voice-one that was eerily akin to steven’s as it was the only thing for her to hear.

_“NO!!!!!!!!”_

**_“YOU SHALL SUFFER FROM YOUR SINS!!!!!!!”_ **

“Marinetta! _Marinetta!”_

The blunette violently tossed and turned over on her side of the bed where gina tried to calm her down.

“Marinetta, calm down!” gina tried to hold onto her to no avail, as marinette couldn’t listen to her.

" _LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!"_

"Marinetta, please wake up!” she directed, shaking the blunette more.

" _LET GO OF ME!!!! STOP IT!!!!! STOP, PLEASE,_ **_DON'T!!!"_** mari screeched out.

Within a horrified shriek, marinette shot awake in cold sweat, her body quivering. Looking up she ran a few trembling fingers through her hair-and later, her head roughly switched back and forth looking around to try to establish where she was. Then she looked at a worried gina beside her, her heart racing.

“Leetle fairy, everything will be okay…” she cooed silently, “you were just having a nightmare.”

 _“Granny!”_ marinette immediately burst into tears as she leant forward into the older woman’s chest. Gina later sat by her, fastening her arms over her granddaughter as she silently comforted her.

* * *

Clean streaks were apparent on marinette’s cold, faded cheeks as she slowly walked home through the late afternoon sky. Bags wore thin around her lowered, bloodshot eyes as she barely got enough sleep from what happened earlier last night.

A sigh sounded through her pink lips as she soon made it to the front of her house. As she walked in, the lights in the house were off, leaving the sitting room in darkness.

“Hello?’ marinette called out, as she sat her bag down on the sofa. “Granny? Are you home?”

Marinette’s attention was pulled to the sofa as her phone vibrated in her bag. Walking over she opened it, pulling her phone from between some books where she winced a bit as the ringtone played a tiny bit louder as later answered it.

“Hello?” she asked through a tired voice.

‘Marinette.” Came steven’s voice from over on the other line. It took marinette a while that his voice wasn’t as menacing as it usually was-it was more subdued and quiet-if not, actually desolate for marinette’s sake.

“Look, there’s been an accident…I swear on my _heart_ , hell on my _uncle_ steg that I’m not shitting you about it.”

Marinette’s eyes slightly widened, twitching a bit by steven’s eerie-sounding words.

“…What?” she said. “Steven-what are you _talking_ about?”

“It’s been all over the news. Just…go look at your tv for a second.” steven confirmed, before cutting the line.

Looking over to the flatscreen, marinette pulled the phone away from her ear as she grabbed the remote to turn to the news-and immediately paled as she silently watched the report.

Behind two reporters that both sat behind a console played footage of a massive pileup on the highway that led to somewhere upstate at least half an hour earlier, where marinette’s heart dropped as she saw that gina was one of the victims when she saw her damaged car in a sea of other destroyed automobiles.

The sounds of the reporters’ voices were drowned out by the loud ringing resounding in marinette’s ears as she immediately dropped to her knees.

“God-if I was as _weak_ , _stupid_ and absolutely _pathetic_ as you are-I would’ve just did everyone a favour and just offed myself ages ago for their sake.”

Marinette looked up through her blurry vision-and immediately wept away her tears as she looked to her side. Before her stood steven and the others, a big smirk on his stubbly face as he glanced down at this target with predatorial eyes.

“Where’s my grandmother?” marinette immediately questioned.

“Oh, don’t count on it.” steven shook his head. “You’ll be joining her soon enough. With lila, and darcy’s parents-who I may remind you that they went up to the great beyond just not too long ago. Darcy felt like _celebrating_ when she first heard about it.”

“That aside…” steven resolved to get his point across as he smirked at her. “You’re going to _kill_ _yourself_ tonight, my dear.”

Marinette looked at him with dread, stuck for words at what he had planned for her along the way.

“No…” she immediately decided, before regaining her composure. She stood up tall, giving steven a dangerous glare as she glanced at no one but him.

“No. No steven, I don’t think I will.”

Steven looked at her coyly, slightly tilting his head as he watched her tempt fate.

He and the others slowly float to the air, releasing a silent, yet menacing chuckle.

“…really now?” he asked. “Look in your eyes tells me-that you might not be so sure. After all-you have every reason in the world to do it. I mean-you killed lila, then darcy’s parents…”

The memories of the nightmare from last night immediately came back to her in raw detail-where marinette shook her head-not wanting to remember it.

“ _Stop_ it.” She demanded aloud.

“What's the deal…?” sabrina asked out of nowhere, voice fully emotionless. “Why doesn’t she use any magic on us?”

“Because **_SHE’S FUCKING WEAK!!!!!”_** steven screamed out unexpectedly, pointing to the blunette. “ _Weak weak weak.”_

Marinette quickly wept a tear that threatened to fall from her eyes.

“Oh gods-you're so _disgusting_.” Steven reviled as he looked her in the face. He looked to the side with a sigh and a shaking head, before immediately resolving to get his point across.

“Now is the end, let her go in peace.” through a hasty, annoyed voice he proceeded to chant aloud, where everyone followed after him.

**_Now is the end._ **

**_Let her go in peace._ **

**_Now is the end._ **

**_Let her go in peace_ **

**_Now is the end._ **

**_let her go in peace._ **

One by one, all their collective voices became slow and grim-where marinette stepped back with slightly widened eyes. Down below, a written sheet of paper daintily flowed down to her feet.

**“I killed Lila Rossi.**

**I’m sorry,**

**Love Marinette Dupain-Cheng”**

Marinette’s eyes were drawn to the paper, and slowly looked up to steven and the others.

“I didn’t write that.”

“Doesn’t matter,” steven shrugged, slowly floating down to the floor with the grace of a leaf. “Handwriting still looks the same, that checks out.”

He pointed his dark eyes down to marinette, “What's wrong with your scars, marinette?”

Before marinette looked down, stainless steel flashed brightly before her widened eyes as steven quickly snatched his arm to the side-and two red lacerations marred both her wrists.

Steven laughed-where a slightly trembling marinette shook her head, and immediately to the side.

“It isn't real.” she immediately pointed out.

“Then why are you _still_ bleeding?” steven asked gleefully. His finger pulled one of the lacerations, where droplets of crimson that bubbled from the scars landed on the paper, staining it with its presence.

Marinette later gave a cold stare to steven, who still kept his demented grin.

 _“Run!”_ he yelled playfully, “ _Run_ back up to your _room_ -your sweet little _safe haven_ -like the cowardly little _bitch_ you are.”

A series of ragged breaths followed marinette as she immediately hit the stairs.

“That's right….fucking christ- _SHE’S SO PATHETIC!!!!”_

Marinette ran through the threshold of the bedroom door and slammed open the door that led to her washroom, where she immediately stormed the medicine cabinet, roughly slinging everything that was inside away to the tiled floor as she desperately searched for bandages to stop the bleeding.

“S-stop-STOP IT!!!’ she yelled out to no one in particular through her search. She held a white cloth that she later discoloured with blood as she raggedly sauntered back into her room, where she later lowered her head as she burst into a mess of broken, exhausted sobs. Steven’s indescribable screams from downstairs however were loud enough to cancel out her quiet sobs.

“ _Please_ , god, somebody _help_ me…” she sobbed out, “ _Please_ ,” she helplessly dropped to her knees, where the sobs continued. “Please….:

She later looked up from her lap-drowning in a horde of thoughts as she silently speculated of the horrors of what steven and the girls would do to her.

And as she thought-it had immediately hit her.

* * *

As he fiddled with the athame that he carried in his hands, steven’s body bathed in the light of a sudden bolt of lightning from afar as he stood before the large windows of the far wall.

“Concubine.” He finally spoke after a while of silence. “Go upstairs. Go see what’s going on with her.”

“ _No!”_ connie immediately protested. “Steven, i don’t _like_ this! This whole thing is just _absolutely_ -“

The monosyllabic word grabbed steven’s attention-as through all their time through their relationship, connie never said no to him before.

“No…?” his voice immediately went grim, as he turned around.

 _“I said no!”_ the Indian girl glared at him, as she stood up from her seat on the couch. “Steven-“

Connie was immediately silenced into submission as steven pointed the sharp blade of his athame to her neck. She found herself glancing into steven’s murderous stare, as he scowled at her.

“Connie get your _WORTHLESS_ _ARSE_ up those _FUCKING_ stairs or so ** _HELP ME GOD_ _I’LL GLADLY SLIT YOUR MOTHERFUCKING THROAT!!!!!!!!”_** his voice later went quiet as his intimidating scowl burned into her eyes, “Defy me that way again-and you’ll be as _dead_ as _she_ is.”

Sabrina grabbed connie’s limped arm, with darcy flanking her. Steven’s arm lowered as he looked at the trio.

“Come on, we’ll go with you.” sabrina offered, as she along with darcy whisked the horrified Indian girl to the stairs.

* * *

**_Hail to the guardians_ **

**_of the watchtowers of the north..._ **

**_by the powers of mother and earth._ **

**_I invoke thee._ **

**_I invoke thee._ **

“Marinette?” a voice sounded from the hall, where another followed.

“Hey, marinette?”

**_By the powers of three times three,_ **

**_make them see, make them see._ **

**_By the powers of three times three,_ **

**_make them see, make them see._ **

The three walked the dimmed halls of the house, where connie slowly followed behind.

“Get over it already, _wiatch_ ,” sabrina demanded to the seemingly downcast indian girl, “We have a traitor to kill right now.”

“…S-sabrina?” darcy called out.

Shaking her head, sabrina turned around-only for her eyes to widen at what she saw at the mirror connie and darcy were both gathered to.

“My…”my hair..” two hands of connie’s went to touch at her rapidly receding scalp, slowly yet shakily. Sabrina was absolutely horrified to know that she was also suffering the same fate as the Indian girl as a sizeable lock of white/black hair was found on the palm of her trembling hand.

Tears rapidly escaped from darcy’s eyes as she stared at her reflection. From head to toe was nothing but a complete _monster_ -which took the form of the darcy as her skin was marred with hideous extensive burn marks.

“No…” the plus-sized girl immediately burst into tears, “No, not _again_.”

“It’s coming back to us, three times three....” connie ultimately assumed to herself.

“Not again, please not again..” darcy roughly shook her head where dozens of tears sprang free, where she was the first to immediately run away. Sabrina ran after her, along with connie behind her.

Downstairs, the girls immediately ran for the door, where their sudden escape came to steven’s knowledge.

“What happened?” he watched as without warning they all dashed out of the house one by one, “Where the _fuck_ are you bitches going?!”

Steven looked to the nearest window as the girls immediately ran down the street. He felt like stomping his foot, where he later turned away from the sight.

“Fucking _damn_ it…” he snarled, “If you ever want something done around here-then you have to do it _yourself_.”

**_Hail to the guardians of the watchtowers._ **

**_Don't be afraid._ **

**_Reach inside yourself._ **

**_Reach inside yourself._ **

**_Hail to the guardians_ **

**_of the watchtowers of the north..._ **

**_by the powers of mother and earth._ **

**_I invoke thee._ **

**_I invoke thee manon._ **

**_I invoke thee manon._ **

“Marinette?”

Thunder sounded through the house as steven slowly crept down the hall, the sharp tip of blade tracing through the side of the bland-coloured wall with every slow step he took.

“Marinette…” he called out again with a slightly impish voice, “Come out come out wherever you are….”

He noticed that one of the doors down the hall were opened, where a smirk slowly made its way to his face.

Steven slowly made his way into the room, expected to find a helpless, or if not _dead_ marinette as soon as he arrived-only for his hopes to dwindle as he later realised that the parisian girl was completely nowhere to be seen.

His eyes scan the room, proceeding to give it a small, harsh once-over to confirm that. He walked around to the other side, looking around to no avail.

“Just where oh _where_ could my little _playmate_ be….?” steven called out, to no one in particular.

An arm extended, where a small hand slowly reached out for steven, where it later sat upon his shoulder-where with widened eyes steven wildly turned around at whoever touched him.

“Did i _frighten_ _you_ , steven?” asked marinette, making her appearance fully known to him, “I’m really sorry.”

Steven’s eyes jumped around the room shiftily. “What the hell’s going on?” he immediately questioned. “Why the fuck are you still alive?”

Marinette still levelled him with the same cold stare she gave him earlier, as she chose to stay pragmatic about her vague explanation.

“Came to me…saved me….and _they_ wanted me to pass along a message to you. You're in _deep shit_ right now, steven. They say you've _abused_ what they gave to _you_ -and now you have to pay the _price_.”

As she spoke, a small roach crept over the side of steven’s face-where as he noticed it, he immediately snatched it away from him where he later threw it away somewhere.

“….did they…?” he wanted to confirm.

Marinette slowly nodded. “Oh. They _did_.”

A small number of bugs later emerged from the sleeve of steven’s spiked leather trenchcoat-and steven immediately shook his wrist to try to get them out of there.

“By the way; what happened to the others?” marinette’s head slightly tilted to the side as she asked of the question. “They just ran off without even giving wither of us so much as a single wave goodbye. That’s bad manners.”

The small roaches later swarmed downward to steven’s arm and to his hand, where they errantly crawled around it-even when steven shook his hand, they still wouldn’t go away.

As steven looked on to his glove-clad hand as he slightly raised it for him to see-before his eyes, each of his painted fingers slowly morphed into small, hissing snakes.

‘W…what…” he murmured, clearly horrified, “What’s going on-“

Marinette couldn’t be bothered to answer that question for him as she just stood there, watching. A swarm of roaches later climbed around steven’s lace-up combat boots, where they slowly made their way to his lower half.

“S-stop it…” he demanded silently, before shouting as he stepped back. “ _Stop it!”_

Steven later stumbled on his feet, falling on his back to the carpet. He proceeded to break out in horrified pants as he was unable to comprehend what was happening to him.

“Stop… ** _STOP!!!!!”_**

Marinette slowly walked up to him, facing him. From what she saw, the uncontrollable storm of various insects immediately consumed steven’s body, overwhelming him with profound fear with their unwanted embrace-where a wave of snakes slowly sprouted, hissing as they later fully arose from his head. Another horde of roaches later emerged from his mouth-and without warning, he immediately released a terrified scream.

The lightning struck from out the window for the umpteenth time, as steven screamed again as he wildly thrashed on the carpet, he later found himself to snap out of it.

Panting heavily, he slowly opened his eyes, first glancing down upon his body. No roaches, no snakes.

“Oh steven, relax…it’s only magic.” marinette shrugged nonchalantly.

Steven looked back at her from the carpet, unable to fully speak through his throaty breaths as he was fully consumed with horror over what he went through earlier.

“Who’s _pathetic_ now?” the blunette’s voice was low and ominous to match her stony face.

Through his gasps for air, steven managed to regain his composure as he slowly arose from his place on the carpet. He stood at least just a foot away from an aloof marinette, where he finally faced her.

“L… _look_ …” his voice was broken, silent as it could be, “I know i’m a little _crazy_...i know i was an _arsehole_ from the beginning…and i really don’t mean to be…everything all got out of hand-i was just so furious-and i’m just...i'm _so_ sorry.”

Marinette’s deadpanned face refused to change through his words however, as she allowed him to speak.

“No more games, okay?” he promised. “Marinette, _please_ -I’m so _sorry_.”

“Good.” the parisian girl silently agreed.

Steven’s thick eyebrows later lowered, as he slowly nodded. His hands were behind his back as he slowly looked down to his boots.

“I’m…i’m just gonna go now. I...I need to go find connie." as he reminded her, he fastened his arms away from his back as he immediately started to leave-until marinette’s voice stopped him.

“And before you do, there’s one more thing.”

Steven stopped as he later turned around to look back at her, awaiting a response from her.

 ** _I bind you_** **_from doing harm, Steven Demayo,_**

**_harm against others,_ **

**_and harm against yourself._ **

_“Wait-“_ steven interjected-but marinette disregarded the sound of his voice, as she just kept chanting.

 ** _I bind you_** **_from doing harm Steven Demayo._**

**_harm against others_ **

**_and harm against yourself._ **

“Marinette, please, _wait_ -” his voice was pleading in a matter unimportant to the blunette however, as she just continued.

 ** _I bind you_** **_from doing harm, Steven Demayo._**

**_harm against others_ **

**_and harm against yourself._ **

**_I bind you_** **_from doing harm, Stev-_**

Screaming, steven quickly brandished the athame from his pocket as he immediately lunged towards marinette-a sudden harsh breeze pulled the two out of the room and into a wall outside of the room. A rabid storm of items from marinette’s room flew their way, as through furious tears steven desperately tried to lung the blade in marinette’s skin, where she quickly tried to dodge every stab.

 ** _“I CALLED THEM BEFORE YOU!!!”_** many sheets of paper, books and other items flew steven’s way as he tried to stab her, **_“I’LL KILL YOU!!! I’ll KILL YOU, YOU BITCH!!! I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU!!!!!”_** The athame eventually freed itself from steven’s messy grip as he later proceeded to rough up the blunette, who masked her face with her trembling arms. **_“I’LL KILL YOU I’ll KILL YOU I’LL KILL YOU I’LL KILL YOU!!!!!”_**

Before marinette and steven knew it, a large wooden dresser drawer immediately escaped through the threshold as it steadily rowed forward. Steven quickly turned around taking notice of its sudden presence, where he immediately jumped away from her-and marinette’s scream was cut shot as the dresser drawer plowed into her.

The chaos steven’s sudden rage bought upon them finally ended-and from the other side the boy in question looked back as he slowly got on his feet from the sea of papers and other various items that surrounded him, crawling through the area where marinette was struck.

“Where are you….?” He wordlessly asked, wriggling forward.

He slowly moved the papers out of his way, where he later fiercely pulled everything away form his to look for any trace of the blunette-to ultimately no avail.

 _“Where are you?!”_ he snapped out through his desperate search.

He moved a couple books out of his way-where he later found her-or what was left of her right at the corner of her wall. Before him sat her uniform as it lied there, clean and untouched.

“Tricky.” he said under his breath as he looked at her clothes, “Tricky, tricky, tricky….tricky tricky tricky…”

With a wide-eyed stare, he quickly retrieved his athame where it sat unused somewhere in the pile nearby. He slowly held it in his left hand, grip tightening on the ornate handle as he held it downward. Staring at the uniform shirt with expert precision-his irises shrunk once he saw a petite body slowly morph into the uniform.

Marinette gave him a thousand-yard stare as her legs slowly rose up, much to steven’s mix of horror and rage as he glowered right at her.

**_“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”_ **

With perfect timing the soles of marinette’s black heels directly yet roughly plunged into the centre of steven’s stomach-where as he screamed as he was hurled all the way to the other side of the hall, his back immediately hit the mirror that was propped up on the wall behind him.

A shower of sparkling glass fell before and around steven as his body ultimately fell to the floor.

From the corner of the wall where she originally sat at, marinette slowly opened her eyes, silently staring at the seemingly unconscious, subdued older teenager that lied a distance before her.

Closing her eyes, she silently proceeded to continue chanting.

 ** _I bind you_** **_from doing harm, Steven Demayo…_**

**_Harm against others…._ **

**_._ **

**_._ **

**_._ **

**_and harm against yourself._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More to come


	14. quiet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of the battle.

Marinette wasn’t sure how to think when she awoke in a clearly unfamiliar, completely white room a few hours later. Slowly looking down, she established that her body was lowered to white bed, before later deducing that she was in a hospital room.

He looked down to her body at least once more, surveying any damage that would’ve been the cause of her being dispatched to the hospital-only to find that she was safe and sound. Marinette automatically took it to mean that as soon as gina arrived home-she immediately resolved to call the ambulance.

Blurred voices, which were an almost overwhelming combination of furious yelling a quiet, desolate sobbing sounded from beyond the closed door, down the hall.

“Please,” a clearly weeping female voice begged, “Just _please_ let us see her-“

“We only want to let marinette know how absolutely guilty we are-”

“You _godforsaken_ _idiots_ _lost_ that right to even _consider_ has a daughter again after you fucking _disowned_ her!”

The pieces slowly fit together like a puzzle for marinette as before she knew it, the yelling eventually subsided. The door later opened where she slowly looked up at a seemingly still-seething gina, who silently walked in the room.

“Leetle fairy, you’re awake,” she vocally noticed the sight of her granddaughter sitting back.

Gina quickly assumed that she might’ve awoken to the turbulent noises from earlier, and immediately sighed. After standing over her as soon as she walked in, she pulled up a chair and sat down near her the side of her bed.

“Darling, forgive me for waking you from your rest with all that commotion back there.” she nodded. “It’s a long story to begin with, but the people I was talking to we-“

“It’s okay granny…” the blunette reminded. “I know it was them.”

“I stupidly thought at first that as soon as they came-you’d at least had a chance to try to look at them in the eye and hear them out….even when you shouldn’t.”

“I don’t _care_ what they have to say.” The acidity in marinette’s voice made the displeasure of seeing her parents face to face again made it known.

Marinette looked up to the slightly startled gina before her-and immediately proceeded to speak again.

“I’m sorry for scaring you like that, granny.”

‘It’s ok, my darling.” The smiling older woman nodded. “They don’t deserve another minute with you alone anyway…not after what they did.”

Gina later pulled the blunette closer, gently stroking through the locks of her hair as marinette later soundly rested in her warming embrace.

“All that matters now is that you’re all safe and sound…that’s what matters the most.”

* * *

Away in a large apartment building located upstate, black drapes were pulled away from the large windows letting the sunshine presumably cancel out the gothic, dark aura in a room where two high-school-aged sisters moved around in.

“What’s this?” whatever spinel found came to her attention, making it known as she slowly pulled out the object of her interest in her hands for peridot to see.

Peridot’s emerald eyes were drawn to a large book, bound with a leathery black hardcover-looking forward as spinel proceeded to open it, flipping through the aged, dogeared yellowed pages. Dozens of ancient, basic-to-advanced spells filled page by page.

“Could this be…a _spell book?”_ the petite curly-haired blonde looked almost apprehensive of the book in question.

Spinel just stared at the hardcover with wonder-whereas thoughts, preferably almost venomous immediately ran through her head as she did.

Unbeknownst to peridot however, a malicious little smirk slowly made its way to her lips.

* * *

Finally released from the hospital the following few hours, marinette just silently sat in the vacant sitting room, as sounds of the flatscreen that sat before her played quietly.

The thoughts she had of the aftermath of the battle still fairly ran rampant through her head, more or less.

Through the past few months, marinette went through a lot-from losing the likes of her family and friends thanks to the machinations of her enemy, then resolving to wipe the slate clean and to start anew in a completely different state and unexpectedly forming a friendship with other outcasts, then to be the target of their scorn after choosing tho make the right decision after things definitely started to go bad-and all right before her eyes.

“Marinette!”

The voice pulled the blunette away from her thoughts, and her heart sunk a little as she saw the three girls, now dressed in more lighter, practical clothing walk from the distance from the glass of her windowpane.

Marinette initially expected some acidity from the trio-but what she saw was different; connie seemed to be the only one who really seemed to have to regret everything she’d done earlier, the remorseful glint in her eye making her feelings from the situation known. But with darcy and sabrina-almost not so much.

Wrapping the bathrobe around her, the blunette opened the door and later closed it behind her, later fully stepping outside and down the steps from the veranda-where she stood a respectful distance away from the trio.

“How…how’s it going?” darcy asked. “How are you hanging up?”

Marinette’s eyes lowered as soon as darcy finished.

“Things are fine.” the blunette nodded as she disclosed things briefly.

“Marinette-“ connie paused. The blunette turned to her.

“I…I really wanted to _apologise_ for what happened earlier…for trying to kill you and manipulating you into thinking your grandmother died. What i did was absolutely disgusting-no, _inhumane_ , really-and I have _no_ _excuse_ for that, seeing as I’m partially to blame for it myself...i know and understand that you won’t believe me when i tell you how absolutely sorry i am for everything that happened. I really understand if you’ll never forgive me-because you definitely deserve that much.”

Marinette eyed the remorseful girl that stood before her, clearly stunned by her words.

“Connie…” she said.

She took collective note of the contrite gleam in her dark eyes through her apology, before later looking down as she slowly nodded.

“I appreciate the apology, connie-really.” the parisian girl looked up as she finally began to speak, “I understand where you’re coming from on steven intimidating you into doing so-and while I sympathise with you with him forcing you into it…i’m afraid that I don’t really think i can’t forgive you…but at least not at the moment. I need some time on my own to try to think-but later on, if it’s okay with you…let’s call it a truce.”

Marinette didn’t expect connie to wrap her arms around her-but later accepted, where connie eventually pulled away a few seconds later.

“Thank you for hearing me out, marinette.” She held her hands into the blunette’s, smiling. “Take all the time you need, okay?”

“You’re very welcome, connie.” Marinette later smiled back.

“See you around-wherever and whenever that might be.”

“You too, connie.”

Slowly nodding her head as she smiled-the Indian girl turned around, leaving marinette who later watched silently as she walked away before her.

“I guess…an apology from us is in order too huh?”

The sound of darcy’s soft voice bought marinette from her sea of thoughts, where she later turned to the plus size girl with sabrina slowly following after her.

Sabrina looked at the blunette, before sighing as she proceeded to speak up.

“Look…we want you to know too that we’re really sorry for trying to… _kill_ you too….” she admits. “Well-the thing is, steven _also_ forced us into doing it too, as he did with connie. We told him about the police coming to our house after the whole thing with what's-her-name…and as soon as we all voiced our opinions on everything happening so far, out of nowhere he just… _intimidated_ us.”

”Yeah.” darcy nodded, “We really never thought that it’d go that far. To be fair, getting back at you for leaving us was basically a circumstance that was way beyond all of our control.”

“Oh yeah…” sabrina meant to add. “And…the whole thing about your grandma dying in that one accident…it was just a glamour. Just a little…practical joke.”

Eyes gradually growing cold by the moment, marinette snarled at them.

“Funny.” She said after a while of silence.

Marinette turned back around-where sabrina stopped her.

“Oh-and one more thing-“ she chose to ask. Marinette looked back at the two, who both politely cupped their hands.

“So we were wondering…like, do you happen to still have any powers? Because we don’t.”

Marinette still maintained the frigid look in her eyes.

“Sorry.” the blunette denied, shaking her head.

“Oh.” the Brazilian girl’s shoulder had slumped at that, along with darcy’s.

“…Well,”s she later spoke, “so like, if you ever…like want to just hang out…or chant or call the corne-“

“Maybe.” the parisian girl suddenly interjected. To the ear, her silent voice was cold and serious as it could be-where it startled darcy and sabrina. “Hold your breath until I call.”

Sabrina and darcy just stepped back at that-where the brazilian girl later chose to break the silence as she smirked at her friend.

“Don’t even know why we came here-i mean she probably doesn’t have any powers _anyway_.”

Without warning, autumn leaves blew along with the strong gust of wind that considerably picked up and roughly wafted through the exterior of marinette’s house. Darcy and sabrina stopped in their tracks as they later turned around, where they saw the stone-faced blunette stare at them.

The usual grey clouds later concealed the sun where the aforementioned pair glanced at it with squinted eyes. Loud thunder sounded-and before darcy and sabrina could even manage to comprehend what was happening at the moment, the pair fell on their backs as a tree branch immediately collapsed before them.

Sabrina pushed her hair away from her face as she looked up, along with darcy-where their eyes were pointed to an impassive marinette, long locks of blue hair gently glowing through the gale.

“Be careful,” mari warned, “you both don’t want to end up like Steven.”

A wicked smirk later made its way to her rosy pink lips at that.

* * *

A _chilling_ scream sounded through an empty room that owned a macabre atmosphere where the same voice later released a stream of small, broken-sounding chuckles as he proceeded to whisper to himself.

Various scars bore steven’s stubbly cherubic face as he had since been stripped out of clothes as soon as he was taken away-he now donned a blank white jumpsuit contrasting from the leathery blacks he usually wore, where he squirmed around in a bed he was tightly restrained to.

A nurse holding a syringe later escorted herself inside the room, silently and gently closing the door behind her.

“It’s…it’s you…it’s you…” he spoke out to no one in particular.

The nurse walked over to the side of steven’s bed, slightly pulling down his pants just a bit to make the area; steven’s upper half slowly rose at that, where he later began to speak up more.

“He...he gave me _power_.” Steven explained. “I can do whatever I want now! I can _fly!”_

“I can _-ow, ow!”_ steven’s words were cut short where it later transformed to slight whining as he was met with sharp pain; the needle slowly prodded against his hip as the nurse slowly injected what was in the syringe into his skin, where steven squirmed in response to the discomfort.

“He gave you something, honey,” the nurse finally withdrew the syringe from his thigh as she addressed the fidgeting older teenager before her. “But it _ain’t_ the power.”

“But really-I can _fly!”_ steven continued to desperately insist, watching as she later left the room, “I’m flying! _I’m flying!_ I _swear_ on it! I _swear_ i am!” 

“I’m _flying_ ….i…i’m flyi-“

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 14 chapters down, one to go
> 
> Epilogue coming soon (either tomorrow or Halloween)


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even though i consider chapter 14 to be the official epilogue, i'm just going to add this as a ""bonus" one

**Many years later**

The whole time she spent in america was the following; her rise, her fall, her rehabilitation and last but not least her condemnation-similar to darcy.

As soon as she graduated her online course she immediately resolved to relocate over to a faraway city. Preferably somewhere in New York, where she kept in contact with gina along the way. There she met a man who she eventually started a relationship with. He introduced her to the rest of his family and the blunette unexpectedly won them all over. And through a span of a few years, they eventually wed.

She’d later invited connie to her wedding, where the two remained friendly and cordial to each other during the rest of the ceremony. Connie looked so gorgeous with her pinned up curls and teal bodycon dress. Contributing to the truce they made back when they were teenagers neither held any ill will to each other throughout the meeting.

The blunette noticed that through connie’s explanation for the others **_(everyone expectedly drifted away from each other ever since)_** sabrina became an mma fighter, where darcy was a guitarist for a band. Both aren’t exactly significantly sure of how they handled the situation-but connie took it to mean that both women were just unanimously considering that as much as they can’t run away from the guilt-they consider it as a fate they live to deserve.

Through their conversations, marinette slowly took notice of how much connie buried her past. She didn’t really allow the blunette to mourn for her in any way-but however she somewhat felt her heart wrench for the indian woman some way after gradually remembering the fate of her ex years ago.

She slowly ignored the many messages from him sent to her on her phone-just as the blunette did as dozens of desperate apologies from strangers from the past blew up her phone.

* * *

“And so, the old woman packed her woven basket, keenly gathering her bearings-and later headed for home.”

In a reading alcove of a public library later saw the blunette, as she politely sat before a small group of young children, intently listening as she silently read along to a story.

Marinette’s cerulean eyes later intently jumped around-before deducing to herself that there were officially no adults in sight. She later pointed her eyes to the children-where her glance seemed to be responsible for the lights in the room dimming considerably.

“…But later that night,” she proceeded to continue, “all the woodland creatures later gathered to the wishing well...”

A decrepit water well slowly but surely appears behind marinette’s chair-where a deer slowly walked from behind a wooden bookshelf, as she kept reading.

“They all wanted to know if the magical powers were true…”

Much to the wide-eyed children, a dark-coloured owl flies in, where it later perched atop a wooded shelf. Snow-white rabbits, hop by, and a swarm of butterflies gracefully fluttered down.

“And even as the old woman precisely cautioned them about the well, they decided to try it anyway-they would have to learn the lesson themselves.

Without warning, a blackbird slowly landed atop the book-where marinette turned the page.

* * *

The French doors gave her a familiar feeling of guilt every time she’d look at them-as the more she looked on at it-the more it slowly reminded her of what she didn’t want to remember-lila’s death.

While she unexpectedly found a friend in the girls the first time she met them, she was initially intimidated by steven at the most. She usually found his bluntness and his sense of being straight to the point unnerving-especially when he pronounced it on her. The rite they performed all together as soon as steven settled in his new apartment, especially when he was struck with lightning-stripped him of his empathy and morality.

The silent rustling of the bushes sounded from the distance-where a figure slowly emerged from the green and out into the darkness of the night.

After gathering his bearings, his first instinct was to glance up at the townhouse before him-where he later pointed his lowered gaze up to the sight of the blunette standing around in her balcony. He later silently watched as she later slowly walked back to her bedroom, closing the French doors behind her.

His eyes soon lowered, heavily laced with a venomous scowl, fists clenching all the while as he slowly rose his head.

“You’re a _traitor_ ,” his eyes never left the balcony even as she left, as he growled out his words snarlingly.

“And _traitors_ shall be _condemned_ as such.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that wraps up spellbound!!!! thanks for reading
> 
> i'm sorry if this epilogue doesn't particularly explain much and wasn't as fulfilling
> 
> i'm thinking about doing something like a "pseudo-continuation" of this (like with Ed Edd n eddy and a cross over of The Lost Boys)


End file.
